the flying squirrel

Sunday, February 23, 2003

From: BlackRose
Subject: What do you...

do what when you're in your room? Don't just play games, you should go out and work out. You'll get fat. =)

I just got that email from BlackRose. Not to me, per se. It was sent to my character in .hack://infection. It's quite startling, seeing as pretty much the only thing I've done all day (and for a large chunk of yesterday) was play games.

I traded in a bunch of my old PS2 and GameCube games at EB yesterday. In return, I got two new games: .hack://infection and Disaster Report.

Disaster Report is wonderful. It was released in Japan as Zettai Zetsumei Toshi which, according to my Japanese dictionary, means something like "Absolute Death Capital City." I'm sure "Disaster Report" was chosen 'cuz it's a bit catchier in English. I was a bit sad to see the Americanization of the game, but after a while it didn't bother me so much. The dubbing isn't bad, and it seems to me the soul of the game is intact. I'm terribly happy with it. It reminds me a lot of Tomb Raider, actually, except that it's actually got a coherent plot (the lack of which turned me off Lara... I guess we're expect to be distracted by her, er, other assets). Tycho writes a better review than I can. I have to say that I find that, with the city falling apart all around you, it's wonderful that you can take the time out to put on a cowboy hat. It's a cool hat.

When I bought it, the cashier helpfully pointed out that she thought the girl on the cover (seen right) looked like one of the Olsen twins.

I'm a little less certain about .hack. I picked that up on a spur-of-the-moment whim. I was looking for Disaster Report, but I had some extra credit from my trade-ins and I have this weird almost subconscious quirk where I don't like to buy just one thing when I'm in a store. I was thinking something along the lines of an RPG, but I was kind of leaning towards the Zelda GBA game. I think what sold me on .hack was that you get a bonus anime DVD (which was pretty cool, really), and something about a "simulated MMORPG" on the back cover.

I don't like the idea of massively multiplayer online games. Mostly because the vast majority of online gamers are absolute dicks. But a simulated MMOG might just be cool. And actually it is. In .hack you're playing a character who's playing a video game. It's supposed to be the hottest video game in years—The World—and everybody loves it. You run around talking to other players and playing the game. It's odd, though, that the greatest game in years from several years in the future really blows. It's dull. I can take your standard hack-em-up, but this one is pretty pointless. I suppose it would be a bit distracting to have two interesting and complicated games going on at once, but for the amount of time you spend playing The World, the least they could have done was make it more interesting.

I think my biggest problem with .hack is that it's obviously a game for RPG otaku. And I'm not. I don't play RPGs that often. I played Golden Sun on the GBA until I got stuck and couldn't be bothered to figure my way out. Before that, Diablo II, I guess, and before that was Exile III on my sister's Mac when I was at home for a summer. The only Final Fantasy game I've played was on the NES. Maybe Zelda would have been a better idea.

But .hack slowly growing on me anyway. The fact that they (optionally) kept the Japanese dialog is cool. And the surrounding idea is pretty compelling. I figure I'll see where it goes. I'll probably finish Disaster Report first, though.

Then again, I should probably go out and get some excercise, too...

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Behold! A sidebar thingy with useless links and crap! As has long been promised for nigh many generations.

Like I keep saying, I want this to be more of a journal than a weblog. It's meant for long-winded ramblings on life and stuff. Maybe some creative works. But I don't get around to that sort of thing very often. I'd rather I was able to come up with something interesting and clever than just update for the sake of updating.

On the other hand, I know from my own surfing habits that I'm only really happy with a website if it has something new every time I go there. I'm not going to promise that, but that's what the sidebar is for. There are times when I just want to point out something cool I've found, or post a "what am I doing now" message, or toss out a missive that would lose its effect if I dwelled on it too much.

So yeah. Stuff. It'll be updated more frequently when I've overhauled my administrative scripts. Having to write SQL statements slows the process down a bit...

Actually, Tink, no, we didn't get any of that Storm of the Century thing. It was stupidly cold over the weekend and we did get a bit of snow, but all in all it's been business as usual. Today was quite nice, actually.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

This hockey stuff is more trouble than it's worth.

I went to Kingston yesterday to wish my sister a happy birthday and stuff. Before that, we went to see her final game of the regular season. My parents were pretty anxious since she hadn't been scoring too many goals lately and her place in the standings was being challenged.

I guess the York Yeowomen (one of the stupidest names I ever heard; thank the gods that the practice of giving women's teams cutesy variants on the "official" school team name is coming to an end) were aware of her standing as well. From the start of the game they always had one or two players on top of her. She couldn't move. (Fortunately, with the defense distracted by my sister, they lost a couple of early goals by other players. There's some lesson in there about large numbers of eggs apportioned into scarce baskets). Obviously she was getting a teensy bit frustrated. It didn't help that the Yeowomen were taking advantage of the fact that the referees weren't calling anything for most of the first period.

As an aside, anybody who says that women's hockey is more of a "skills game" and isn't nearly as violent as the mens' obviously hasn't watched a women's hockey game. Just because they (sometimes) call penalties for "body contact" doesn't mean that there isn't body contact. Those girls are pretty brutal.

Near the end of the first period, a fight nearly broke out in front of the Yeowomen's net. Harsh words were exchanged and my sister felt moved to shove one of the opposing players from behind after the whistle. That got her her first penalty.

She got another penalty later, 'though I didn't see why. Queen's was scoring well, even though she wasn't. York had only scored two goals—both while she was in the penalty box. Even though it wasn't helping much, the Yeowomen kept up the dirty pool. My parents were getting tense and frustrated. They know my sister's a bit volatile and that she fancies herself something of an enforcer. Towards the end of the third period, she was sent on again and my mother said something like "He should really keep her on the bench. She's getting out of control."

The whistle was blown and a penalty was called on York. Things were a bit confused then. My sister yelled out to another player, I found out later, "Why don't you go back to York and learn to read!" I can only assume that this comment was in reference to the team's name, as it's a rather silly thing to say otherwise, hockey and literacy being largely unrelated. The game stopped. My sister was arguing with the ref as she was being escorted off the ice. The coaches were arguing. It turns out that the referee interpreted my sister's weak taunt to be a racial slur. The player in question was native, apparently, although how anyone (besides the referee, obviously) would have noticed that eludes me. She was given a gross misconduct penalty and sent out of the game.

Queens won the game 6-2. I'd pretty much lost interest, though.

She was crying when she got in the car. Calling her a racist is tantamount to punching her in the stomach. I was a bit relieved at the injustice of it all. It meant that my mother was trying her hardest to make her feel better, rather than yelling at her for blowing her chance at making MVP or the All Star team. I kept my mouth shut and did what I could to look sympathetic.