The Phalanx

Wait. A touhou tennis game where you have to dodge bullets WHILE HITTING THE BALL? This better have online multiplayer, dammit. There's gotta be a couple HUNDRED by this point, nevermind the many many flash video's. But as for good Touhou remixes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_f3fpaCL5U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SlD0cFixXU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLoYLhfXzRo I've yet to play a single one of the games, but I horde the music like a rat does food.

I am exploding with GLEE now. Absolute, pure JOY.

I am now having the best day ever. From the attire of the protagonist and the general style of the game, I'm getting the impression that this occurs somewhere between Lament of Innocence and Castlevania 3 (or Castlevania Legends if you wanna get REAL technical, but that's not canon anymore so...). There's something like a 400 year gap between the two, and Mattias was roaming the world doing...something. Gathering power, one would assume. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf

I used to experiment when I was younger (hey, didn't we all?) with sleep deprivation; I believe I had some grand scheme to write something about it and get it published. I went through three days of no sleep before I simply couldn't stand it. Not out of exhaustion, oh no; that wasn't what made me give up. It was the goddamn noises. Think of it not unlike Ulver's "We are the Dead." Night after night of staring forward, lacking anything of real substance to do, the only thing to keep you company being the horribly warped radio and the single, red eye belonging to it. I became acutely aware of sounds; the little noises of the night that few people seem to hear. Insects, nocturnal animals roaming along the outside, distant cars, planes flying overhead at all hours, the creak of the house settling. At first, I admit, it was utterly fascinating--staying up in silence, listening to all of this and hoping for something new. But eventually I couldn't stand it any longer. I cannot remember why; perhaps it was some combination of total exhaustion, the collapse of most of my mental faculties by that point, or something else entirely, but I just didn't want to hear those nightly noises any longer. During the day is fine--I'm awake, doing things, performing errands and working and whathaveyou. But at night? That's all secret; hidden sounds not meant for me. I sleep with the radio on now, to drown those out.

Ahem.

...we just played in a one-shot game today. "Stories from the Floating Vagabond," was the name of the system; old and hard to find, long since out of print but made for wacky one-shot deals or light-hearted comedy campaigns. Me and two other players rolled up characters from TF2. I was the Pyro, and we had the Heavy and Scout. The amount of fun we had should be a sin.

Yanno, one of our GM's is trying that with one of his games (a Final Fantasy game using Star Wars Saga Edition, no less). It's with mixed results; since it plays every other Sunday, group A might not even play for a month while he does a session or two with group B. But I don't expect it to go on for much longer anyway; two players (myself included) have dropped out for various reasons, schedule notwithstanding. But I won't get into it. See, players like these, when introduced into a social game, quickly find that they can't actually handle anything beyond what's at the other end of a sword. Either they adapt and become better, or leave. The best way to get them out of such a mental ideal is to run a game yourself, in a style YOU want. Slowly introduce them into social problems and complex elements, weening them off the hack n' slash mentality. If all else fails, there's always IRC chats and the like. Just...don't go to #dungeonOOC. For the love of GOD, don't go there.

Yeah but its like...always facing Ken when yer playing Street Fighter. It eventually gets old VERY fast. But then, sometimes you get the reverse of that. In a campaign I ran not too long ago, it consisted of a necromancer, TWO paladins (one of which was a TROLL), a Swordmage and a Warlord. Yeah, try balancing encounters with THAT nonsense. Fun nonetheless, but goddamn was that a hassle sometimes. Oddly enough, they never fought over marks.

Hell yeah I do. Currently it's twice a week; one on Tuesday, and one on Saturday, Both are 4th edition D&D, and from what I've gathered I'm all but destined to the Defender role as NO ONE ever wants to play them. It's all strikers strikers strikers and like a controller. Maybe. Tuesday game is a campaign set in the same world that the DM has been running for a little while now. We're all in Paragon tier, and the vast majority of the party is either evil or unaligned. Not of the 'baby killing and house burning' variety, mind; more the mercenary 'we're in this for ourselves and money' kind. In search of the various gifts of a dark god for a church. The party consists of: - Xale, the human cleric of Xidgiel, a god of needful hunger. He doesn't particularly LIKE his god, mind you, and rather piggy-backs on his power until his level-bus reaches Demigod Town. Has the highest goddamn AC in the party (at something like 40!)and every heal spell ever. Secondary tank. - Spectra Bane, tiefling rogue and the only one with bluff worth a goddamn--thus, the party's face and oddly, voice of reason. In it for power and connections to influential and powerful people (and a bit of a slut, all told). Hits with the force of a tornado...when she can roll above a five. - Shango, tiefling star pact warlock and OLD AS DIRT. The stars are what leads him, and he ultimately wants to control luck itself; he enjoys making people slip on banana peels when it clearly shouldn't be possible. His debuff spells are terrifying in their effectiveness, and his damage ain't too shabby either. Too bad the player takes forever on his turns. - Monté, a frankensteinian creature and battlerage vigor fighter (that's me!). Ugly and misshapen, intelligent but marred with a stutter, and wielding a gigantic shovel as weapon of choice. Noted for his bajillion hit points and inability to die; the DM has never gotten him to bloodied...or even below a hundred. The entire party trusts him, for one reason or another. Made an artefact sword of hunger feel FEAR just by holding it. - Donovan, human ranger who wields a pair of revolvers. A cowboy of sorts, but probably the biggest, most callous monster out of the whole group; caused a man to cut his own eye's out and then took them as a keepsake. The DM hates trying to attack him, as he always calls out an Immediate Interrupt and gets out of danger at the last second. Has managed, in each place we visit, to blow something up spectacularly (usually with the warlock helping him out). Dangerously low on dynamite at this point. Overall, the game has been a series of grimdark epic mixed in with a bit of fail; the DM has this bad habit of asking for detailed backstories for everyone, then doing jack-all with them and all but ignoring such efforts. He's made the rogue's skills useless on several occasions by not actually LETTING her use them (LOL MAGIC LOCK DERP). But on the other side of the coin, we ended an encounter with a giant solo rapebus of a monster in 3 rounds and less than half an hour due to fantastic teamwork and several handy criticals, so...

inb4 ten submissions featuring Marche.

If they asked her, I'd like to imagine Amy would come back to head the project again; she seemed to enjoy her work on it, from what I've gathered. The only real sore point is that no one could voice the Elder God any more. ... ;_;

Someone just got SERVED.

Delayed. I've been having anatomyfail over the past week, and today my hands have cramped up something down-right-fierce.

More like "I completely forgot about this bloody competition, AGAIN." Not that I ever win ANYWAY.

Well dammit.

I think it's due to the set-up; they're laying the groundwork for the next episode or two. And the middle usually is never as exciting as the beginning or end.

In Metroid Prime 1, you find the remains of an Alpha Metroid in the Phazon Mines.

I'm most excited over Cave Story being released for it in the near future. Gonna have to get myself a Wii first, though...

...wait, Atmuh left? DAMMIT.

Starting with Blind Guardian just isn't fair, man. Anyway: Rotting Christ makes me feel like I'm not going to take on the world, but get into an epic battle on the ashen fields of Avernus, fighting against Bel's infernal forces. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HALvKOpAunQ

This better be epic. The latest series of CV games have been...adequate. Similar in vein to wanting an excellent steak but getting a quality hamburger; its satisfying and all, yeah, and its TASTY, but its not quite what you wanted. It's not FILLING. A change in the formula is needed, badly. And NOT as a fighting game; I want to see a GOOD 3-D game, and not Rolling McFliparound-the-boring-castle. Environments that leap out and BEG to be explored, that return of the creepy foreboding danger with just a hint of victorian to it all. Mostly, I just want the Battle of 1999.

I've been wanting this for YEARS. Seriously, a company needs to do this.

http://www.broken-notes.com/productions/productions.html Silent Hill fan album. More atmospheric, really, but it's unsettling to listen to at 2 in the morning.