Showing posts with label Warty Goblin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warty Goblin. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

ZOMG, ultimate alien movie/Warty Goblin pay attention

Right.....i hated Dances with Wolves, Titanic, Last Samerai, Ferngully, and the smurfs. I am going to see avatar tommorow, which is most likely going to be one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life. To brace myself for this horror, i have decided to watch district 9 for the first time....which was FUCKING AWESOME. Oh my god, i loved that movie, it goes on my top 101 best movies of all time (list still in making). Now, the real question, can the few hundred million dollar budget avatar film compete against the 20 million District 9? Coming to you....next weds day maybe? personal life, IB projects and last college application so maybe? Anyways, regardless, my hiatus is going to be over by next few weeks, because no more SATS, or college essays, so more reviews and more thoughts


Warty Goblin i want to ask you to watch these films too and write your take on them, i saw you on the avatar thread, very impressed, what did you think? Also i haven't commented on your game reviews cause i never played them, but thanks for posting

from
EE

Thursday, October 15, 2009

You're in the ArmA Now: Part 1

In which I actually play the game past the tutorials.

I'm in the passenger seat of a Humvee, moving into the outskirts of a vaguely middle eastern looking city as part of a two vehicle convoy sent to investigate gunfire. This city is part of the US allied half of the island. Opposite it is a bunch of communists, who, being communists, can be shot without feeling guilty. I'm playing a US soldier sent here to train the non-communist monarchy in communist-shooting. The mission's been a snoozefest and is almost over, with my company the last to leave.

I dismount the Humvee, and, along with the rest of the squad, press onwards into the city. The radio suddenly comes alive with stilted military reports of enemy activity:

"Enemy. Missile soldier. Twelve. O'Clock."
"Enemy Machine Gunner. Is history."
"Move. tothat. House. At. Twelve. O'Clock."

Hey, it's me. When I'm writing in italics, I'm discussing the game itself without any attempt to maintain a narrative. This is actually how people in ArmA talk. Unlike most games which just have some stock phrases like 'enemy sighted,' ArmA will actually give you a description, heading and distance to target on contacts. This can be very helpful, the downside is that these are made from pasted together sentence fragments, and thus sound absolutely dreadful. In a surreal touch, the person you are playing as will radio in contacts without being told, or even telling you that he's doing it. This leads to a weird condition wherein my soldier dude know the location of somebody I haven't even seen yet, or me shooting at somebody my soldier dude doesn't know exists. It's rather like having split personalities. One of them is eerily professional, giving precise reports on enemy movement with the diction and emotion of an automated phone system , the other (me) is vaguely incompetant, keeps walking off of rooftops, wondering how I get into a vehicle, and missing things with the M203 grenade launcher.

We run move tensely around the city for a while, but it's very confusing, very brown and bullets keep flying past me coming from God knows where. They've obviously got RPGs somewhere, because the Humvee that moved into the city with us is destroyed, killing No. 4. Finally, desperate to see what's going on, I climb a rooftop, and find myself face to face with a Communist Special forces soldier, lying prone and taking pot shots with an AK-47 at my buddies in the street below.

I think it took both of us by surprise. I hadn't expected anybody to be on the roof, and he had clearly thought all of us would be too busy trying not to get shot down in the street to come up here. We both freeze for an instant, but I'm a bit faster, and get the first shot off. My three shot burst tears through him. In an instant he's covered in blood. He rolls over and goes limp. I watch him for another few seconds, part of me horrified that I just killed him, part of me elated that he didn't kill me, part of me wanting make sure he really is dead and not faking.

This encounter happened more or less like I wrote, except the first time I went up on that rooftop I was so shocked to actually see an enemy, I think I forgot how the mouse worked, and was promptly shot. Fortunately the incompetant side of my personality has the ability to rewind time to a 'save point' and thus avoid death. It goes a long way towards getting through those little inconviences like multiple bullet wounds.

No sooner have I decided he really is dead than the order comes for us to get out of this street and fall back to a yard about two hundred meters away. I make it there in a panicked dash, flaming green tracers licking my heels, and crouch behind the rock wall with the rest of my group of soldiers. We see a tank, whoever is in charge radios for extraction, and we jog another 300 meters or so to an APC without encountering any more resistance.

So it looks like the commies have waited until almost all of us were out of here before attacking in earnest. Our friends the Royals are doing pissall to form an effective resistance, so it's just up to us now.

Thus ends my report on the first mission of ArmA's campaign. I actually died about five times during this section, once because I stood too close the Humvee when it blew up, a couple of times from enemy fire, the rest from accidentally walking off rooftops. One of ArmA's weirder features is no jump button. If you can't walk over it, you can't get over it. If you can walk over it, it really doesn't slow you down at all, which, combined with the inertial movement, makes those little ledges at the edges of roofs completely worthless for actually stopping idiots like me from plunging to their deaths.

I should also spend a moment talking about the various bugs one will encounter in ArmA, because there are a lot of the things. They come in two sorts- mildly amusing in a surrealist way, and completely show stopping.

The first happen more or less constantly. They range from the interiors of APCs forgetting to draw themselves, to my personal favorite, the muzzle flash of my rifle undrawing any nearby walls. Essentially I fire my gun, and get XRay vision for a quarter of a second. I've also had sniper rifles spontaneously fire themselves, and various trees randomly decide to fall over without any obvious reason. If it was a part of the level design, that'd be one thing, but I really doubt the designers intended to block the main road through a town with a big old pile of branches like that.

The second also happen consistantly. I'm unable to complete the helicopter training mission, because the script that causes the copilot to board the Blackhawk is broken, so he won't get in and I fail as soon as I take off. I had one mission that occurs later where I'm supposed to blow up a bridge, but cannot plant explosives. So basically it's just like the real military, except with a touch of Lovecraftian madness. It's a heady combination.

Monday, October 12, 2009

You're in the ArmA Now, Introduction

I bought ArmA: Armed Assault.

I suspect the audience just divided itself into four neat groups.

In right corner we have group 1, milling about clutching Wiimotes and wondering what on earth an 'ArmA' is, and whether it supports Friend Codes.

In the middle we have the second group. They're mostly apathetic, expressing how they heard of that game once, but got Call of Duty instead. Then they talk about Prestiging for five hours. Expect high incidence of the phrase 'so awesome.'

To the left a number of people have thrown themselves to the ground and put their hands over their heads. Some of them have started talking to their invisible friend Ralph, or else are frantically clicking through their cellphones for their therapist's number. The more lucid among them are looking at me and going 'you poor bastard.' before walking away shaking their heads.

In the far right the last segment of the audience has instantly put on strange looking hats adorned with motion sensors, split into four man fireteams and established a perimeter. As I finish typing this, three of them have finished setting up a casualty clearing station. A couple of guys with sniper rifles are doing overwatch.

These four groups are, in reverse order: The fans of Arma, the broken husks of people who tried the game, those who don't care, and those without a clue. Since I see the fans are setting up a spotting position for close air support, I feel I should make a statement before things escalate.

To the fans: Weapons are not free. Repeat, weapons are not free. Stand down, you do not have permission to engage.

To the broken husks: Try some deep breathing, and maybe some drugs.

To those who don't give a damn: We know your golden Deagle is like, so cool.

To everyone else: I'll tell the fans to 'neutralize' the next person who mentions Mario Party. Now shaddup and listen up, and I'll explain before anybody gets hurt.

ArmA: Armed Assault is a very, very hardcore FPS for the PC. So hardcore it is perhaps more simulation than game. Specifically it is a simulation of being a soldier, but because it is a sim, it takes away most of the props you usually get in an FPS. Bullets will kill you very, very fast, and there's no health packs or magical regeneration. You get shot, and if you're lucky enough to still have a pulse, you're stuck with a wound for the rest of the mission. Get shot in the arms, you can't shoot as accurately, get shot in the legs and you can't sprint. Or so I've read, I'm not far enough in the game to have actually been shot yet.

Even more than the health though, the guns are hardcore. I'm a pretty good shot in most FPS games, able to reliably put lead into people's brains with assault rifle and sniper rifle alike in games ranging from Half-Life 2 to Crysis and even S.T.A.L.K.E.R. After a few tries I can't beat Arma's training range. Nor is it because I have some super exotic weapon with funky sights. It's an M16A2, a rifle any self respecting gamer has fired hundreds of times.

In Arma you have to control your breathing, account for bullet drop, and lead targets if they are moving. There's even a sizable 'dead zone' in the center of the screen where you can change your aiming point without changing your body's orientation. That's right, your gun isn't bolted to the center of the screen, which takes a bit of getting used to.

This will be my journal of sorts as I play through the game. It will chronicle the good, the bad, and the bugs. Also the ugly, the boring, the thrilling, the heroic, the touching, and the slightly mental.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Warty goblin vs. Terry Goodkind, also known as Warty Goblin is a damn genius

I just read this on a thread, and while i didn't ask his permission, i hope WG will forgive me for using this excellent summery of the series i hate so much
from
EE

"The thing to remember about Goodkind books is that their quality is inversely porportional to their series number. Wizards First Rule is a good book. The sex and violence might be a bit offensive for some, but it's not really perverse yet, the world is, if not startlingly original, at least competantly executed.

The second book is decent, but could be edited with a chainsaw. Seriously, you could beat somebody to death with the paperback. I'd be afraid to even own the hardback in case somebody tried to pick it up, broke their back and sued me. It's also here that the real rot sets in, although this doesn't become apparent until a few books later.

It's been a while since I read the series, so after that they all sort of start blur, which is more or less the problem. It takes detailed scientific analysis to tell them apart. Until Faith of the Fallen or thereabouts, the following algorithm gives a fairly good representation of a Sword of Truth book.

1) The Bad Guy, Jagang, tries to do something. Often this involves that harbinger of originality's death in fantasy: prophesy.

2) Richard, our strapping hero armed with powers of plot, a very large sword and enough homoerotic imagery to stop a gay pride parade in its tracks, finds out about this. Often he's also kidnapped at this step.

Fill out the next four or five hundred pages with the following, mixed to taste.
A) Jagang has Bad Guy Sex. You can tell because he's into S&M, among other things.

B) Richard Kills People. This always occurs in the written equivilent of slow motion. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that Goodkind only knows how to write about three fight scenes: Richard kills people with a sword, Richard kills people with an axe, and Richard kills people with his hands. All of these involve something that damages the brain, be it blood that apparently has the consistancy of hemp (it's always described as flying about in ropes), or ripping people's spines out through their stomach.

C) Kahlen, Richard's very powerful yet often useless Mandatory Love Interest With Absolutely Enormous Boobs, is almost raped. In the first books this was actually effective, because it showed a certain amount of grit and added tension to the narrative. After the fifteen time or so however one becomes aware that it's really just an excuse to talk about how Kahlen has Ladyparts again. Just in case we'd forgotten. Don't worry about Kahlen ever actually being raped in the SoT series, that only happens to Bad Women and your brain.

D) Something horrible happens to a lot of people. This gives Richard, Kahlen and the rest of the troup of 'good guys' a chance to appear good by figuring out who they need to kill next in order to stop the horrible thing.

E) Richard does something horrible to a lot of people. He then proceeds to explain, in mind violating detail, how he's got the moral clarity neccessary to understand why he had to kill everybody, or collect their ears or something like that, because it's for the Greater Good and Freedom and when the enemy does it it's Wrong and for Slavery. This coming from a guy who rules a kingdom where everybody has to pledge their lives to him every day.

F) Somebody else 'good' does horrible things to people for the Greater Good. This is supposed to make us realize how Absolute and Moral the conflict is, but in fact makes us wonder what the difference between the bad guys and the good guys is, since they both enslave and treat other people's bodies as fashion accessories. At one point an enemy is tortured to death over the course of night or more because he killed somebody one of the main characters liked. That's the sort of 'good guys' we're talking about here.

G) A Kahlen and Richard 'sex' scene. This almost never works out. Sometimes it's because the pair of them are neurotic as hell, sometimes it's because even though they are having sex with each other, neither recognizes the other and thinks its somebody else. Once they do manage to get it on, but it Doesn't Count because it happens on a different plane of existance, so Kahlen's still a virgin. Or something. Honestly that never made any sense to me, I mean either you've had sex or not, right? Or is Kahlen the new Bill Clinton?

At this point Goodkind notices that his word processor is on three or four suicide watch lists, and decides to wrap things up before the pain of containing his afront to the language becomes too much to bear.

The ending will consist of Richard killing somebody, pulling some new powers out of his ass*, waxing moral, and then explaining how they didn't really win because the enemy still controls all this land and there needs to be a sequel so Goodkind can buy a private island, or possibly hire an editor.

*Not literally. Although given Richard, if he ever did need to kill anybody with poop, he'd do in slow motion and sickening detail.

Things change around a bit with Faith of the Fallen wherein Richard builds a statue so beautiful it causes riots and the overthrow of a government. Then things get really, really bad with Naked Empire wherein Richard kills peace protestors because they're filled with hate for Moral Clarity. Richard, of course, is driven by hatred of those who hate Moral Clarity, because Richard loves Moral Clarity, which lets him butcher unarmed people and feel good about it. I stopped reading the series when a major character was erased from existance, causing reality to unravel, because my brain can only take so much abuse."