Endings

And the weekend ends as quickly as it started. Just like last weekend, I was greeted with a frustrating work issue in my email that I worked myself up about. That added a bit of annoyance to my days off; however, I did get some stuff done.

I got most of my chores completed. Which is good since that means I have food and clothes for the work week!

Writing; though, was not as successful. The new blog is probably the most successful, but honestly, I don't know how good it is. I actually managed to get three posts up with substance, and I have a lot of tools for story telling at my disposal if I use them right. Maybe it's starting slow, but I don't think there is a better way to do it considering the setting and story.

The writing contest stuff was less successful. I didn't get anywhere near completing a story, so nothing will be ready on October 1st. Hopefully, it's a monthly thing, or even if it's not, it'll open up again. That will give me time to refine the story I'm working on. Hopefully, it turns out good. It's around 1,800 words at the moment. I'm still under the 4,000 world limit, but I have to be careful.

I did find another contest on the site, and it's not due until November, but it's only a 1,000 world limit. So, that may be a goal for next week; however, I'm going to have to work hard to come up with a good story that works in a thousand words or less.

As for the game story, I didn't get anything written. Nothing at all. I did find some 2D engines that I forwarded to J', but that's about it. No progress. :(

Though, I submitted my Infamous 2 review to GameFaqs and it was published. Yay for that at least. I guess.

Anyway, it's about bedtime. Night from a less than successful writer who feels like he just wasted a weekend.

Weekend!

Today is the first day of my weekend, and it seems to have flown by. That's probably because I slept in way to late! Didn't get up until around ten! Blah!

So, I have a few things I want to accomplish this weekend! There's a writing contest I want to enter, but the story is due on the 1st of October. I think I can get it done this weekend. It won't be long, so that makes it a bit easier. The rules state that it is required to be no longer than 4,000 words. I'm going with the Science Fiction one this month, and I think I have a decent outline to build on. We shall see.

I also need to write something up for Project Steamworks, but I'm not sure what yet. This one is probably going to be the hardest!

And I've started a new blog. I don't know where it's going to go, but I hope it turns out to be fun and entertaining. It'll probably start off bland, and I'll need to edit stuff around at some point when I get better direction of where it's heading.

Finally, I need to clean up around the apartment and buy groceries! I hate chores! But, it must be done.

Not a super big list, but it is all quite a bit of work! I managed to finish up my list last week, so hopefully I can pull it off this week!

Day 2

And by Day 2, I mean of the work week. Only working 4 days a week makes it difficult to call it a week name unless the third day is considered Wednesday before lunch and Thursday afterwards. Day 2 is just easier.

I spent for too much money on a few shirts and nit-knacks, but you know how it can be sometimes. I needed a new mousepad, really epic one. Oh, well, I hope some of the stuff can go into the eventual decoration of my apartment. Nerdy/gamer style! Still gotta save up money to do that.

I also have to save up money in case any Temp Assignments come up for my job in Cali. That would be an awesome opportunity to get, but extremely expensive. It'd probably break me, but I'd have to do it for the experience and just the great opportunity. Regardless if it lead to a permanent job.

I've had to take a break from the Web Development stuff. I think I put my head into it too much without moderation. If I didn't break, I'd hate it. So, trying to focus more on writing with a little gameplay on the side.

I've been playing Dead Island, and it's pretty fun. Fun enough smashing zombies at least. But, I have to moderate that as well. This week and weekend, I think I'm going to focus on writing, get more creative examples out there.

I have an idea for a zombie story, but not your traditional survival horror. I'll see what comes of that. However, for a fun experiment, anyone that read this, give me something. A topic of some sort to write on. An idea that I can creatively expand on. Anything. A setting, a plot, a character. Anything. Give it to me, and I'll try to turn it into something. Then, you can tell me what you think.

For now, I'm going to brainstorm ideas for my ever constant novel and my zombie story. Every writer has both, right?

Productive?

So, I think I was pretty productive this weekend. I did two reviews on the blog that I was promising for a while! I also wrote up my final nation on Pathseekers! And I did a design document for Project Steamworks.

I think the reviews turned out pretty good. I even got a comment on one! ^_^

The nation was kinda short, and I may need to go back and do some more work on it later. Not sure, yet. I like the feel of it, though. Magic punk needs to be defined a bit more, I think.

As for Project Steamworks, the doc isn't that big, but it covers major characters (protagonist and antagonist) as well as a short synopsis on the story with setting and theme stated. I do need to flesh out and revise a few things in it, though. But I think the synopsis is pretty solid for what we want to build. Now just to figure out the best way to build it for the mobile platform (first at least) for fun, additive multiplayer.

I also finished Anansi Boys this weekend, so that's cool, too. I need to finish my video game writing book, and I think that is my next task to finish. Then, I'll get back to the web design book. I had to take a break from it a bit as I think I put too much time into it without a break. It was killing me.

Other than that, time to go back to work tomorrow; however, that generally goes by pretty fast. I did find a site that I may be able to put reviews on, so we'll see.

I think I'll end the weekend with a little more zombie smashing or maybe some Morrowind. Not sure just yet.

Sucker Punch

It's been a few months now since I watched Sucker Punch, and the movie has been--more or less--been put out of my mind. However, I said I would share my thoughts on it, and now I finally will.

I should probably note that I did not see it a second time nor do I ever plan to as that would qualify as torture in some lands, I'm sure.

First off, what does the title mean? Well, I'm pretty sure they tried to explain that near the end or something in scene in which Peter Griffin would have loved, but it didn't really stick with me. By that point I had already decided that I as sucker punched by this movie in general.

I'll be honest; I was highly anticipating this film after seeing the trailer a long while back. It seemed like they were going for an epic story with a strong leading female heroine set in a very beautiful fantasy world with legendary fight scenes.
That's not what happened.

Well, there were many female "heroines" but not many were very interesting. I'm not a female, some saying they're not something I was able to relate to is probably moot, so I won't discuss that in depth; however, I didn't really care about any of them. I had slight concern for the supposed main character (*spoiler* the sucker punch is that it's not her story...apparently). Yeah, yeah, I know what they were going for, but it didn't work.

I didn't care about ANY of the other characters in the slightest. They were all very one dimensional and (*spoiler*) by the end getting killed off left and right.

Setup: Abused daughter gets sent away to a mental institution after her stepfather framed for the death of her sister (he killed her, surprise). There, Baby Doll--as she is nicknamed--meets the other very sexy but crazy denizens of the institute; however, quickly the institute turns into a brothel. Obviously, this is the start of the inception like comparison many people like to pin on Sucker Punch.

Let's get one thing straight, there are no similarities between this movie and Inception. One (despite what some will try to say), Inception is a pretty good movie; and two, Inception explains what the hell is going on.

Think if you went into Inception, and they just started going into dream worlds without any kind of explanation or acknowledgement. That's what happens in Sucker Punch, and they also do go an extra layer deep as the brothel turns into many other fantasy based areas as the girls go on missions to collect random items to escape the candy land/brothel/mental institution.

With all the stuff happening here, you kind of wonder if they should be in an institute. Ok, ok, not fair. I know they're trying to explain the girls are escaping the abuse and hard reality of the world by going into these fantasies. Regardless, I don't feel like it works. I don't believe it. I feel like it is poorly explained and very clunky.

At the end of the day, the story was barely passable, disconnected and loosely put together, and ended with a big "meh". Not going to go into the details of the ending just in case you want to watch it, but be warned, it isn't a good ending by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, it's not bad, but again, overall a big "meh". And no story, epic or not, should end with the audience going "meh".

So, if it wasn't an epic story, what was Sucker Punch? I think it turned out to be what they wanted. A giant live action anime (albeit with less point than even the craziest anime) with sexy women in epic fight scenes set to awesome music. That's exactly the whole of this particular film. If that's truly what they were going for, they succeeded by tenfold.

I don't really know any of the actors in the film, none of them stands out to me; however, that isn't necessary to be a good film. Sadly, while the acting wasn't say as bad as The Last Airbender, it was just bland. Which I guess is the overall feel at the end of this movie. Bland and meh.

Sexy babes. Check. Awesome fight scenes. Check. Really great soundtrack. Check. Story. What?

Yeah, that's about how it goes. The really focused on the first 3 aspects and let the fourth fall to the wayside feeling like something hastily patched together to justify making the film in the first place.

I think, like many video games and comics as well, the female heroines are a bit exploited for the thrills of the male fans that obviously hoped to attract (nerds/geeks/gamers/anime fans) which are--in all honesty--predominantly male. Yeah, there are female fans in the droves, but they don't compare to the male fans in those demographics by the numbers.

I'm not a feminist or feminist supporter--and don't take that to mean I'm against equality or for the oppression of woman because I'm not, I just hate the way they approach things--but even I felt like this film that originally looked like it would promote a positive female heroine (ok, not completely but still); however, they just became sexy school girls fighting samurai robots (should have figured that out from the trailer, but one could hope, right?)

I think you either love or hate this movie. There's not really any middle ground. The soundtrack was really the best part. It was clearly focused on exploiting the geek/gamer demographic, and I think it worked to do that. I'm not sure of the profit it received, but sadly, it probably was greater than Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, which is pretty sad since it was a movie that demographic really should have supported (damn you Michael Cera).

I would suggest wasting your time on something else completely! Sucker Punch is very much fluff with little substance.

Infamous 2

Infamous was a great game. It took the sandbox genre (which I considered championed originally by Grand Theft Auto 3) to a different level. No longer were you a thug trying to become a made man, but now a superhero...or villain! It totally set itself apart from the standard games in that field.

A few years later, and now we have Infamous 2. The original game, as far as game mechanics, at least, was not really groundbreaking. Infamous 2 sticks to that trend as the system is basically the same as the first game. Now, don't get me wrong, that is far from a bad thing.

If you've played a sandbox game like the GTA or Saint's Row series, you know the standard controls and camera views. It's all about the 3rd person action here. Of course, Infamous tosses out car driving and jacking as the main character, Cole, is electrified and any car he drove would seemingly explode.

Cars aren't needed, though. Presumably, due to the superpowers and years as a courier, Cole is pretty fast on his feet. He can also climb exceedingly high buildings very fast and drop from heights without any damage--once again likely due to his superpowers and possibly a monkey back in the family tree.

Traveling in Infamous 2 is such a blast, especially, once you get a few travel power upgrades like Ice Launch (Firebird Strike if you're evil), Induction Launch, and Lightning Tether. You get Lightning Tether near the end, but it's pretty nice. Sadly, it's not very conductive to jumping into combat; though, and it cannot be selected with Ice Launch/Firebird Strike with is a bit inconvenient to the flow.

Another change from Infamous traveling was the removal of charge when using Induction Launch (i.e. traveling over electric lines). Not too big a deal, but a slight disappointment.

Combat is solid, for the most part, and pretty much a pull over from the original game. The targeting system can be a bit loose at times if multiple enemies are around, but it works out in the end. The worst part of the combat is the "large" enemies. This is for two reasons: 1) No variety and 2) Cinematic death.

These enemies are novel the first 2-3 times, but once you're fighting them for the 25th time? Not so much. There is only one way to kill most of them, so you have to stick to the same pattern. Then, when they die you're treated to a nice "take camera control away" for around 5-10 seconds. There's no way to skip these, and again, after the 25th time, it's a bit annoying and tedious.

The story starts off with the main antagonist (mentioned at the end of the last game), the so-called Beast, attacking New York Empire City, and taking a page from every other sequel where you play the same character by beating you to a pulp and stripping you of your powers.

And soon enough you're on your merry way to New Orleans New Maris with the Beast hot on your tail. And by hot, I mean extremely slow. After each story mission, you're informed of how much closer he is, but it never really feels like a big threat to worry about.

Luckily, New Maris has its own Edwin Edwards with a dash of Billy Graham with Joseph Bertrand III, the leader of the local Militia and thorn in your side as you build up your powers in preparation of the Beast's arrival.

All in all, it's an entertaining story, and the moral/ethic system returns for another round. Unlike the original game, the good or bad decisions do actually have some functional effect (outside of powers obviously) on the story. You work with one of two companions depending on your choices, and while I won't spoil it, the endings for each side significantly effects the story unlike the previous game where it didn't really matter that much.

Of course, powers are affected again by your good or bad choices. If you're good, you'll get ice based powers, and if you're bad, you get fire powers.

And finally, the characters are nice even if a bit two dimensional; other than Zeke. That's right, you're right hand man is back for this game with his silly antics and Elvis looks; however, he this character feels as though he has more depth than previously displayed. And he brings the humor to the game! An all around entertaining and strong character.

Cole, the protagonist (in case you didn't know), is actually pretty much the same with little to no depth thanks to the moral system. Since you can choose to be good or bad throughout the missions, he really can't have one or the other type of personality without diluting your choices and thus you're left with a very bland main character. It's very minor; though, and shouldn't kill the fun for anyone.

The other supporting characters, as mentioned with the 2D aspect above, are pretty set in their ways. Your evil companion is evil (at least to a degree) and your good companion is good. Though, at the end, the good companion does do this odd switchoroo on you that seems completely out of character, and is honestly the only complaint story-wise I have. It was just a bit jarring for a character that seemed pretty set in her ways.

Outside of the main story and quests, you get your choice of side missions (which are really necessary if you hope to unlock all the powers and upgrades) or user created missions. I didn't really do the user created missions after attempting a few as I didn't really find them all that fun nor did they add anything to the game. The side missions are fun enough albeit incredibly repetitive.

You're also given "random" events that pop up throughout the city which are the definition of repetitive that tries to use the moral system as well. For example, you find a bomb and you can either disarm it or let it explode.

And the collection side this time around is the good old dead drops just like the original game's satellites, but no longer static (but just a bit less) in the form of messenger pigeons. Adds a little extra story if you collect them all. Of course, Blast Shards. Tiny, little items scattered all over the city, and there are over 300 of them. You collect them in increasing multiples of ten (10, 20, 30, etc.) and collecting the required amount increases your energy. I'll be the first one to admit they're a bit addictive to collect since you have a power that makes them flash on your mini map, and it's always just one more!

Overall, I had a great time playing Infamous 2. Like the original; though, I don't really plan to play it again. In this case, I actually borrowed it over buying it because of that reason alone! There is some DLC coming out; though, that may bring me back depending on what I hear about it! I do recommend playing it if you loved the first, and if you haven't played the first one; then you should play them both!

Broken Record

Here I am again to talk about SMMO. I know, I just talked about it the other day or whenever; however, I'm really excited for Skyrim. It just seems like the perfect idea! Even if we wanted to limit the idea down, we could make it so that players only met up with other players in Taverns and such where they could chat, trade spoils, etc. I think it would really add to that particular genre so much. I just don't know if we'll see it done. At least not done by Bethesda, and if they don't do it, I'm not sure I'd be interested.

Anyway, not too much of a productive week. I finished chapter 7 and 8 in my big book of programming, and then finished out the week with some Morrowind (preparing for Skyrim!) and some Dead Island. Dead Island isn't as bad as I thought it would be; however, there are some issues. Oh, yeah, I'll get to those, but just not in this post. I still have to do an Infamous 2 review, and I'm going to make that happen finally by the end of my next weekend. I plan to do some writing next weekend including Infamous review and some work on Project Steamworks. I really need to get some story concepts written up. Wouldn't want to make J' upset.

Still working with the HTML stuff as noted by finishing the CSS chapters at the start of this weekend, but I just wasn't ready to jump into the design and design issues chapters just yet. It's so much stuff, and I'm just nervous that'll never get it all down and useable. Not sure if I'll ever be good, you know? Which brings up the question of what am I really good at, and was my time in college really worth it in the end. I love my job and all, but I don't know if my degree will ever help me there in any way. I really didn't even need one to make it into my current line of work, and it's obvious that it's not really necessary to go forward (nor does it really seem to be of help). So, I just wonder if it would have been better to have either went for something else or not even went at all. If I hadn't went, perhaps I would have found a job and built of practical experience which seems to be what everyone wants vs. theoretical experience. That's what I get for wanting to be a writer, especially since I can't seem to write anything.

So, along with my other writing endeavors (the reason I'm going back to the Infamous review finally), I think I want to build of some gaming reviews. So, play like a reviewer, and not necessarily a gamer;then, pump out some reviews. So, I could use those as writing examples for websites, maybe some freelancing stuff. There are some non-freelancing stuff, too, but along with the moderation job, I need to compile that information and get it to my HR rep to review. I also need to setup a meeting with her this work week (probably Monday) to discuss my 401k so that I can finally set it up. I hate bureaucratic stuff, it makes me nervous.

I've also been thinking about one of my greatest weakness, and totally the particular weakness that makes me suck in interviews. I'm talking, of course, about my lack of public speaking abilities. Verbal communication in generally, but mostly aimed at speaking with more than one person,or in a situation that's important with someone in which I may be unfamiliar. I pretty much set myself up for failure when it comes up to lack of public speaking training since I avoided the class in college; however, I did that because I was terrified of public speaking. I just don't know what to do to overcome my fear as well as my inability to overcome it. Improv classes have been suggested, but I'm too nervous to even do that. I think a lot of it comes down to lack of confidence (another big weakness) and insecurity about my accent/voice. I much rather like typing things because, in most cases, I feel far more comfortable and confidant.

Anyway, it's pretty much time for bed. I may read till noon and go to sleep. It depends on how I feel when I go in there. I'm not particularly tired, but I still need to get some sleep. I do have a strange craving for soy sauce, though. Oh, well. G'night.

My Projects

Hey everyone!

So, I have a few things I'm working on. Quite a few tasks and responsibilities I have queue'd up and I'm working to get done. Some are personal and some are professional. Here's a list in no particular order with some explanation below!

• Web Development Languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Writing Portfolio (websites)
• Writing Portfolio (games)
• Making a game
• Making a website
• Making a fansite
• Financial matters (401k, Savings Account, credit card)
• Getting my truck registered to Texas

1. Web Development Languages-I'm currently studying the basic web languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This should help me accomplish other goals on the list (website/fansite), but also help me a lot in my current career. I want to be able to move to a different department, and these skills should be a big boon along with my English degree. I want to actually get my certification in each of the listed skills, and go from there to see what's next. I think, in terms of web development, it would be either PHP or ASP.net. I'm going to have to discuss that with a few people to see what they suggest.


2. Writing Portfolio (websites)-So, this portfolio will focus on my writing in general with hopefully websites, reviews, editorials and such. I'm trying to get some information to my HR department about a few things I'm interested in doing. One is writing for The Escapist. They recently added a "Write for The Escapist" section, but I need to run it by HR to see if I can do something like that since it is paid. Another thing I'd like to do is simply write for a gaming site, no pay, just building my writing skills and getting my name out there. This is something else I can use in my current career as well--published works to show off my writing skills. Finally, something else I have to run by HR, is a voluntary moderation position at MMO-Champion, and I need to get some moderation experience; however, that may be obtained on on of my other projects if it works out (see below).


3. Writing Portfolio (games)-This project is mostly related to Project Pathseekers, and focuses on building my portfolio in writing for games. I need to get some more stuff written up on there. I have one more nation to write up, and some more extended scenes to get on there. Other than Pathseekers, another game I'm working on (see below) fits into this category as well, but I'm not just writing stuff for it, I'm working on level design and general project management with my other friends on it as well. We had our first semi-successful meeting the other day.


4. Making a game-A few people at work and I are spit-balling a game concept that could work for smart phones (and maybe even steam). We finally got together and banged out a solid concept to build on. It's going to be set in a steampunk environment and about capturing renegade robots (maybe some ghosts) and other things! It's envisioned as a side-scrolling, action platform style game. Some game mechanics still need to be reviewed and discussed, and we just came up with the idea, so I haven't went into story development just yet. I plan on getting into that some this work week before work, but gotta focus on Web Development stuff as well. I think it's a solid concept, but there's so much to do to get it off the ground. I need to figure out how to make levels for it in the UDK, actually write story, and find someone who can produce art for the game (assets, everything like that). We'll see where we go from here.


5. Making a website-This one is a bit far off, I think. I was talking to a friend, and we're thinking about making our own gaming website. Possibly with reviews, editorials, and all that jazz. That's what I want to do at least, and I think he's interested in making videos on games and such. However, I need to get a solid base in Web Design. I'd like to get a forum up and running on it, so I can do my own community building and moderation for career experience.


6. Making a fansite-Another one that is just a bit off as well, but something I'm really interested in doing. I think it blends together my current study of web design with my creative aspirations. It would be a Diablo 3 fansite, but not your typical site. I'd like to make one focused on following my Monk's journey through Sanctuary in a blog style writing (journals on his travels) and extended scenes written by me (story excerpts from his journey). Of course, I need more HTML experience and it wouldn't happen until whenever D3 comes out, and who knows when that will be.


7. Financial matters-So, I finally set up a savings account, so that's out of the way! Yay! However, I've yet to set up my 401k, so that's very, very bad. I talked to a financial adviser today, and he explained the stuff to me a bit more; though, I'm still slightly confused when looking at the setup page, so if there's anyone out there that has set up their company 401k, and wants to help me out, let me know! And finally, credit card! I need one. I don't really want one, but I need to build credit. I'm 25 and have neutral credit, which isn't bad, but it isn't helpful either. I have to decide which one to go with through Chase.


8. Getting my truck registered to Texas-Finally got all the information here, but I need to look into how much it's going to cost, where I need to go get the title switched to my name, then how much it will cost to change the license plate over and where to do that. I've been procrastinating on this one a long time, but I really need to get it done!

And that's about it on my list for now. I know there are other things, but not everything can be listed. I also feel pretty overwhelmed as it is. On the bright side, this whole post was written using HTML, so that's something, right? Anyway, I have to get to work early, and figure out some stuff. So, I'll be back eventually with more updates! Later days!