Thursday, July 1, 2004

   Business as usual

Well, Sciros.net 2.0 is coming along steadily, I'm happy to say. It'll still be a month I reckon, but there's progress. Also, I have discovered Full Metal Panic! and Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu and find them higly amusing. Great anime; watch it if you can find the time. It doesn't pretend it's anything special, and it really isn't, but it has a good mix of action/comedy and so far been quite polished on top of that. FMP! is the first season, and has an actual plot to it. FMP? Fumoffu is the second season and is nothing but BS, like Love Hina but better carried out. LH was so random it hurt at times. I haven't seen Spiderman 2 yet. I probably will see it this weekend. People have been saying it's good for now, but the initial reaction to the first Spiderman was good too (including mine, actually), and I have since grown to hate the film with a passion. Watching it a second time actually made me turn green and strong and I ended up breaking a couch. So my expectations from Spiderman 2 are not too high, but not toooo low. I believe that it is better than the first, if only because of the better special effects (will they show the same explosion 6 times in a row again?...).

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Monday, June 21, 2004

   I'm BACK!

I have returned from my week in VA, and I must say it was great. We did some fishing (caught some large carp; catching carp is kinda weird and unorthodox, but it works really well. Ask me how if you care). We also did some boating, and I messed up the rotor in the back a little bit because I hit some rocks because it was my first time and I kinda headed into a crappy area of the lake. But it was still cool. I had to fight off a large fish-man though. I was just standing on the lakeshore when this fish-man jumped out of the water and challenged me to a Kendo match. Well I had two swords with me and a fight started. I kicked his ass, but since the swords are flimsy bamboo it didn't really harm him much. So I took out a rifle and shot him square in the face. We fried him for dinner along with the carp. It was good. Anyway, I'm back, which means Taekwondo, work, FINISHING SCIROS.NET 2.0 finally, and tons of other stuff.

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Friday, June 11, 2004

   Vacation

I'm out of town right now. As per the typical horror film formula, I am spending a week in a cabin on a lake in Virginia. I might be attacked by at least one underwater creature, perhaps a murderous psychopath, and maybe even an alien creature. You never know. Anyway, I'm prepared just so you know.

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Monday, June 7, 2004

   Finals

I have 2 final exams Monday: Databases Computer Architecture They will both suck so bad I'm going to cry. The Database final I hear is very difficult, and I have it at 9:30 a.m. so I'm sure I won't exactly enjoy it. The Comp Architecture one is with a professor I've already had for a previous class (Intro to Operating Systems) and that final was horrendous (imagine an open-note, open-book exam that is still difficult as hell, and then imagine that notes and books are not allowed, and you'll get a vague idea of the sort of exam it is; I knew how to answer 1 out of the 13 questions). The Comp Architecture exam is at 1:30 p.m. Oh well, those are the only exams I have left, so after that I'm going to get together with as many friends as I can and we're gonna all have a big drunken orgy. Also I have decided to become a Pokemon master. I got PKMN Ruby, my brother got PKMN Sapphire, and another friend of mine got PKMN Sapphire. I used to be a PKMN Master back when PKMN Yellow was around. I had a level 100 Surfing Pikachu, even (and I freaking earned him though some mean game requirements, not some stupid PKMN Freak convention or something). I was totally hardcore, and built the absolute best team I could think of. It was pretty much unbeatable. But then PKMN Silver came out and that game sucked so bad that I stopped playing PKMN until June 2004. But I'm gonna be all hardcore about Ruby/Sapphire and Fire Red/Leaf Green (in terms of building the best team, not "catching them all" like an idiot; most PKMN suck so much I can barely stand to look at them). Although I won't be lame and replay the games 3x each so I can make a team of 3 Mewtwos and 3 Rayquazas (the 00ber PKMN from the games). Doing that is soooo lame.

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Thursday, June 3, 2004

   Q & A session with Sciros

Well, I got very few questions from people, but I'll answer the ones I received. I'm gonna be honest rather than interesting, though. From Mamma Vash: If your favorite anime character had to work in the current day Earth, what would the occupation be? Well, seeing as my favorite anime character is Urd from Oh My Goddess!, I'd say she would be a permanent houseguest of some poor unfortunate college student. I'm poor and unfortunate and a college student... By Panda: -In the event of a water landing what on your desk will become your flotation device? My desk is mostly computer peripherals, papers, and CDs, so this one is tough. Pretty much nothing on it is less dense than water... except a bar of deodorant which I didn't put away. I guess I'd have to use that as my flotation device. ...Oh! I could take the cylindrical top from my CD spindle and hold it top-up and pull it down into the water in such a way that air is trapped inside it. That's what I'd use for flotation. -If you were an anthropomorphic cartoon character, what would you be? I'd be the rhino form of Rhinox from Beast Wars. He is awesome. -Have you ever eaten dog food? Nothing that was initially intended as dog food. But I have eaten stuff that afterwards became dog food because it was so bad. -Do you act the same online as IRL? Somewhat. I am just as open about my opinions and such, but I'm not quite as aggressive with people. I tend to be nicer in real life, even to people I completely despise. Also I'm funnier in real life. And much more studly. By Baron Samedi: When was your first kiss? Hmmm... I forget. There were some meaningless ones in high school. My first "passionate" kiss happened during my freshman year in college. Was it good? Eh. It was alright. Did you enjoy your schooling? My high school education I enjoyed immensely. I took all the AP courses I could, and although it was difficult due to the workload, my teachers were all top-notch. My college education, while complemented by a more exciting non-academic life, is not nearly as fulfilling. I think I'm only going to truly learn a lot from an internship. What is your favourite thing to have for lunch? Indian food. I freaking love Indian food. If I can I'll eat it for brekfast, lunch, dinner, and middle-of-the-night meal. But I only get a chance to have some when I go out to eat at dinner-time occasionally. By Nosh17: if you could change the color of the skies, why and what color would it be? I would not change the color of the sky, because the sky changes color on its own. I love beautiful sunsets, which I really only get to see when we go to an island off Georgia's (the state) coast in the Summer. Sometimes the sky is bright blue with orange and gold streaks, and there is a deep red cloud on the horizon blocking the sun, which gives the cloud a bright orange-red outline. Maybe I'll put up a photo of it sometime.

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Sunday, May 30, 2004

   Lots of work to do...

Well, school will be out in 2 weeks, which means... HELL!! This week is going to be a real killer. Two large group projects (one of which I'm fully directing), another presentation, a lab assignment, and a final. That's just this week. Next week I'm gonna have 2 more finals (luckily two of my classes will not have finals at all (well the project counts for one, and the other was Japanese)). Japanese 101 was soooo freaking easy! I put almost no effort into it. I'm gonna finish our textbook this Summer so I can breeze through 102 and 103 once school starts back up.

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Sunday, May 9, 2004

   Great weather

It's finally warm! It's 90 degrees out. And it's Mother's Day, but my folks are only gonna get back in the evening because they're driving back from out of town. So after tennis I mowed the lawn, watered the flowers and bushes and gardens, cleaned the whole house, bought four bouquets of flowers, and my brother baked so many muffins and cakes that we won't be finished with them for two weeks I bet. One of my buddies turned 21 yesterday, so I should drop by and give him some fancy bottle of wine or vodka or something. Also gave my grandparents a call--today is "Den' Pobedy" (Victory Day), which for folks like them is a REAL day to celebrate. I can't wait for school to end, so I can stop worrying about things for at least a little bit. But sadly there's still a month left.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2004

   Fighting Games

Yesterday I decided to post something on Otakuboards concerning SEGA's upcoming Virtua Fighter: Cyber Revolution. There wasn't much to say, other than that it wasn't a "fighting" game and more of an "adventure/career mode" game. I did it to poke fun at the game, because I hate the Virtua Fighter series. Anyway, Charles apparently missed my naming Virtua Fighter: Evolution in the "Crappiest Games You've Ever Played" thread I started a while back, and was surprised at my bashing VF this time around. Now, I know that a lot of people like the VF games, so it's not a given that I'd think the game is crap, especially considering I AM a "gamer." So I'm going to explain to Charles and everyone else who cares why I think the VF games are horrible. In a very unorganized fashion. Ok, I guess it's most fair to start with the fighting mechanic of the game. It has all the basics--tons of moves per character, 8-way movement, "counters," grabs, "reversals," rising moves, juggling moves, etc. It's very close to the fighting mechanic of Dead Or Alive, which has all of the above as well, and it's all executed similarly too. So, then, why is that mechanic a problem? Well, because it sounds more complex than it really is. Rising moves and juggling moves and the gigantic list of special moves that characters have--all are ridiculously easy to pull off. On top of that, they're intuitive, meaning that if you've played fighting games for any considerable amount of time, there's not that much of a learning curve. At least such is the case for me, and Virtua Fighter: Evolution (that's the one my friend has that I've played), just like DOA3, and SC2, are all a complete joke to me. Because all the special moves are something along the lines of P,P,P,K,->P, "competent" button-mashing can make you quite unpredictable and deadly at the same time. Anyway, I found nothing rewarding about the fighting itself, because any "hadcore gamer" who knows how fighters work can become as good as he'll ever need to be in about a half-hour. Now, I'm sure all of you insane VF regional champions think I'm wrong. Well, I'll be more than happy to come over and totally school you at your own game. AgentAA7 (sn), another buddy of mine, beat his roommate (the friend who owns the VF Evolution disk and was using his personal "butt-ugly monk") with HIS EYES CLOSED, just to make a point. If that doesn't show that the game is a bit button-masher-friendly, I don't know what does. Now, did I get "as good as I'll ever need to be" at VF Evolution? Honestly, I don't know, because I didn't try playing the game's highest difficulty level computers, nor did I play any true VF god. But I certainly got way too good considering I played the game for about a day. And I can't bring myself to put in the year's worth of work it would take to improve the little bit I would. I'll go ahead and address a certain criticism right now: how can I judge a game, especially any depth it might in actuality have, but only having played it for a day? Well, first of all I didn't start playing video games last month. I can get a pretty good impression of what a game has to offer from even a single evening of having played it. So far, I've never CHANGED my impression significantly after having played a game more. I claim that I know about how "deep" VF Evolution is as a fighter from having played it for an day. You may disagree, but then again what you may consider deep I may consider to be inconsequential. (Also, I think "ring outs" are criminal.) Anyway, moving on... Now, I don't really care THAT much if a fighting game has poor fighting mechanics if it offers a whole lot more otherwise. Examples: Soul Calibur 2 has Link (Gamecube), killer music, and... umm... so anyway I haven't played it for a few months now. I'll talk about SC2 in another post. Another Example: DOA3. Another button-masher, but with unbelievable graphics and just plain awesome animation. This game has by far the best martial arts technique that I've seen in a 3-d fighting game. And I consider myself a bit of an authority on some martial arts technique. So I like DOA3 simply because of its visual appeal. I'll discuss DOA3 in a different post perhaps. Anyway, back to why VF sucks. To me, cool characters are paramount when it comes to ANY game. I need to like the character I play as. And every fighting game offers at least SOMEBODY who I think is cool, with the exception of VF. Heck, even Tekken, which I think is the most horrendous fighting series on this side of the galaxy, has Hwoarang (I like him because I practice Taekwondo). Virtua Fighter has the ugliest characters I've ever seen in a fighting game. Seriously, every one of them is butt-ugly. Their skin textures are revolting, and their faces are repulsive. It's unbelievable that on average 10000 polygons make up a VF Evolution character as opposed to only 8000 in a DOA character. Where did those other 9000 polygons go? It's shameful. I'm tired of people saying how graphically the game is a real achievement. That's just BS. And it's not like I thought every character sucked to begin with. I mean, I tried out everybody. But they're all horrible. Every one of them looks like a total asshole, or is just super ugly. Don't get me started on that tank of a woman Vanessa, or the old man who sounds like a freaking bird. Also, not all characters are balanced. There are clearly beginner characters and advanced characters and what not. That's not what I call balanced, especially considering what button-mashing can do in the game. Anyway, the bottom line is this: there are only four fighting games in the history of fighting games which I have played for the sake of a skill-based fight (because it was clear who the truly skilled were). These are Killer Instinct, Killer Instinct Gold (or KI2), Super Smash Bros., and Super Smash Bros. Melee. All other fighters--the cell-shaded Capcom crap, Tekken, VF, SC, DOA--I played just for the heck of it. SC2 for the music, DOA for the visuals, the rest because I felt masochistic. (Also I can beat pretty much all fighter arcades using, if I have a bad day, a buck.) So I'd play Virtua Fighter for what reason then, if not to become awesome at it and have crazy fights against my brother (who is another hardcore gamer)? Well, sure, if I owned the game I'd play through Quest mode (there's no Kumite mode in VF Evolution, which I'd play if I had VF4 instead) and stuff. But after a couple of weeks with the game it'd never see the light of day, much like my SC2 disk. So, not having a PS2, and thinking that visually it just hurts, there is no reason for me to play it a friend's house when that same house has a GCN and Xbox with way cooler multiplayer games. There's probably more things I can think of to explain why I dislike VF, but they escape me at the moment. Maybe they'll come up in a discussion.

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Tuesday, April 27, 2004

   Bored

I am bored. I have been looking at other people's MyOtaku pages, and they are answering random questions that people send them. It looks kinda fun, as long as the questions are clever or interesting. So if you are someone who knows me or wants to get to know me a bit better, why don't you ask me some questions in a comment to this post. Once enough people reply, I'll answer them all as well as I can. Update on life: well my website is coming along, slowly. My current sciros.net is a POS, really. I can't wait until I have enough free time to finish the new, all-Flash version. It'll be awesome when it's done.

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Sunday, April 18, 2004

   Adventure!

I have started an adventure in the Adventure Arena section of Otakuboards. It's called "Warmaster: Deliverance." Please read the rules in the Recruitment portion of Adventure Arena, and then join! It will be a great story with characters you will come to love and hate and a plot that will intrigue you throughout. Well, if everything works out, that is. I have the story all figured out and hopefully it will turn out the way I plan. This means once it's finished we'll all be excited to go on to the second chapter in the Warmaster saga I've created.

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