13 - Mostly Games

June’s all over, then. Or close enough, at any rate. Seems like only yesterday it was starting and now I already have to start planning a new poster for the main hall. Stuff like that always feels like a real pain before I do it, but when I actually get round to it it’s actually a lot of fun. Independence Day was the obvious choice for July’s poster, but not really being all that American I went for a poster of differences between America and the UK. Units of measurement and popular food and the like. Turned out well, I think, if a little too colourful. Like a primary school kid did it, you know, only more informative and grammatically consistent.

It’s tests this week. Testing here is more common than in the UK, but it’s all over pretty quick. This week’s Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are class-free, but students get three tests every day from 8.50 to lunch time. Then they go home. Pretty sweet, I say. Or I would, if I didn’t know that the poor kids’ parents probably push them into studying every afternoon. Doesn’t help that summer’s only three weeks away, so it’s not like they really NEED a break. Anyway, no class means no work for Petey here. Testing period is the time of poster making, future class preparations and studying of Japanese. I’m re-going over the N2 stuff from the JLPT, and finding I’ve forgotten about 75% of it. Well, maybe more like 65. Not studying for a test (good luck for this Sunday, JLPTers!) so incentive to actually crack down on it is low. Incentive to just read a book is much higher. Oh, and marking those tests. I do that, too.

Taken a break from Robert Jordan (on account of not owning the third book yet) to restart Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. I do love the universe of those books, the post-apocalyptic cowboy knights thing. It’s ace. Though I was a little disappointed to read the first book for the second time, this time in the form of his later re-edited version, and to find that it actually makes a lot more sense this time. I remember reading it the first time and getting well into the trippy delirium of the gunslinger’s journey through the desert, ‘cept this time it wasn’t quite so confusing. A bit of confusing’s like the herbs in Pete Pasta Sauce, see. Having said that, a bit too much and it dominates the experience, makes you feel unhealthy. You hear me, Primer?! Still enjoying it, just a little disappointed it didn’t last quite so long as it could’ve.

But games! I’ve been through a lot of games lately! Binging on them over the weekend, you might say. Amnesia is all over with now, thank heavens. I have never screamed like that before. After Daniel’s journey was over I turned to a game where darkness is your friend rather than your foe: Batman Arkham Asylum. Superb stuff. The one thing that really struck me about the game was how exceptionally clean it was. You know? No bugs, no glitches, no bits of cliff that look like a child cut them out with plastic scissors. It looks good, it feels good, and not once did I die because the game screwed me over. Never gotten into Batman before, but I was glad I did. After that I bought and installed Driver San Francisco on a daily Steam deal. I admit wholeheartedly that if Yahtzee gives a game high praise then I become interested in it, especially if its something like Driver that I gave up on after 2. But yeah, San Francisco is superb. They got over the nasty running around on foot bits well by letting you jump between cars at will, and it’s a wonderfully freeing, but at the same time suitably restricted, experience. I mean, a game that instils a fascination for 60s cars in me deserves high praise indeed! Not… that much of a fascination, mind. Just enough to think Dodge Chargers are cool. Looking forward to getting some real time down on that, as well as maybe trying out multiplayer someday.

But that’s not all! No, not after I discovered that I had 15 gigabytes of space remaining once Driver was on. So, I decided to branch out a little and try something else. It’s been a while, but I thought I might start up an MMO and see how it went. Maybe Steph could get involved too, I thought, and we could have one of those sad nerdy character weddings. That’ll be the day. Anyway, ‘cos it was free and apparently very good I started up an account on Lord of the Rings Online. The whole Free to Play thing is thrown around a lot these days, and I have to admit to being pretty cynical about it. I mean, Free to Play can mean very little. I played Champions as soon as it went F2P, having been so very excited about that game since it was first announced, and was bitterly disappointed by how little the game has on offer for no money. You can’t mix and match powers, you can’t customise your character all that much… Not so good. LOTRO, on the other hand, is superb value for money. As with many F2Ps out there, you get your character for free but can pay money to buy cheeky upgrades and the like. Flaming swords, y’know. But the amazing thing about LOTRO is that it gives you 500 ‘Turbine points’ just for starting an account. 500 may not seem like much, but it’s actually quite a sizable amount. You can’t get ANYthing, but you can get a heck of a lot. I spent my 500 on a fancy armour set, a key for some fancy loot box I haven’t found yet, and a fancy mug of fancy beer that Glyde the Captain can hold in his fancy hand. ‘cept for the key, the two of them are cosmetic only, but that’s still pretty great! Suddenly it feels like I have a perfectly unique character on this game with a million people (not to mention I’m a Man, and it looks like every Man and his mum is a Captain). Not met anyone else yet who swings a mug of beer around with him wherever he goes! But that’s totally not all. The game will give you MORE points for completing optional side quests! Scavenging the ruins of Bree-land gets you 15, for example. It’s not a huge lot, but its enough to save hopefully. 15 more and Glyde gets a horse! A HORSE! How cool is that! The one problem I’m having is that, being in Japan, whenever I want to play is bedtime for most of the world. Things in Bree have been a little quiet of late. So if any of you lot out there operate in Japan time and want to come play, I’d love to see you.

Okay, what else? Oh, I bought that GUILD01 game for the 3DS a while back, too. It’s… not quite lived up to expectations, but it was a darn sight cheaper than other new games at the time. If you’ve not heard of it, it’s a project by Level 5, of Professor Layton fame, to give some power to the indie developers out there. GUILD01 is four games in one, all made on small budgets. Quality varies, obviously, but its still pretty good. You’ve got your Kaihou Shoujou, which is by SUDA51 if you’ve ever player No More Heroes or Killer7, and has a girl on a robot flying around an alien-infested Japan wiping them out. It’s high-octane stuff, and the boss fights (much like in No More Heroes) really make the game. Also liked the cheeky cameo from America at the end, trying to invade Japan. It seems like that’s all the yanks do in Japanese games these days. Will they ever learn? Next was Rental Buki-ya de Omase, which is some kind of rhythm game shop simulator thing. You’re a weapon rental shop in a fantasy universe, and you need to make weapons and rent them out budding heroes. If they do well, they level up and make the world that little bit readier for the return of the Dark Lord, who turns up a couple of months into the game. They’ll also bring back more resources so you can build better stuff for them. If they lose, you lose out on a precious weapon, and don’t get paid. Oh, and they die. It’s a really charming game, with some splendid characters, and its all done in a very tongue-in-cheek, sit-com sorta way that makes it difficult to dislike. The actual making of the weapons feels a little random, and as the games all in real time I ain’t spending the time to read through the huge descriptions of all the bonus resources, but it plays well and I can honestly say it keeps me from getting bored.

Aeroporter, on the other hand, could not do that. You run an airport, and you have to arrange the passengers’ bags on several carousels so they get put on the right plane. You have a quota for the day, and you gotta meet that to level up your airport. Get a high enough level, apparently, and you can make your own airline, and colour in your own planes. I say ‘apparently’ because I’ve never made it that far yet. The game’s difficulty curve is just astronomical. It was all I could do to stop myself rage quitting after the fourth day, and after that I could only make it to the seventh without earning anything for the time I wasted. I guess I’m not a time-based puzzle kind of person. Finally is Crimson Shroud, which is taking AGES to get into as it’s a choose-your-own-adventure book in Japanese. From what I can gather it’s pretty good. You have your cast of characters, and you lead them through a dungeon and hope to find some lovely treasure. You fight enemies and level up, and eventually find some kind of boss, I presume, only I haven’t got that far yet ‘cos there’s so many woooooords!! It takes me FOREVER to do anything in this game! And I’m exhausted after just one fight! My brain can’t keep up! Give it time, though, and I’ll get into it. I’m sure.

The second one’s due out over Christmas, with only three games but they all look really ace. Something about exploring a secret zombie lab, something about killing giant insects with soldiers, and something about a day in the life of some primary school kids in a universe with every week some giant monster attacks the city and some masked fellows turn up to stop it. That last one sounds really good, if they make it deep enough.

Okay. Headache. Gonna stop. Not like I’ve done anything noteworthy over this month.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Just had a brief look over the whole of this blog. You'll be happy to know that it's 75% game related. Story of my life.a