12.28.08

The End Is Near

Posted in Site News at 6:00 pm

So, I don’t know how many of you folks watch DNS registrations like a hawk or anything like that. If I had to guess, at an outside number, I’d say none of you. That’s fine. I’d be really worried if anyone I knew was like that. It would be like Trainspotting, except creepier. Sorry, I’m getting off-message here.

Back in June, I registered JohnZeitler.com after believing, for ten years, that it was too expensive to do so and/or that it had already been taken. Some of my experiments since then disabused em of the former, and the latter was just a happy coincidence. In any event, most of you have already clicked that there link, so announcing that I’m moving my blog to it now would be kind of anti-climactic.

(Incidentally: You can’t really say “Hooray for anti-climax!”. Well, you can, but you’d have to do it kind of half-assed.)

Yeah. Come the first of January, all my posting will be done there. On Friday I put up a little post explaining why I’m moving, so you can go check it out if you’d like (wait, you already did– damn, now my head hurts). One of my goals for 2009 is to have daily posts again; I didn’t realize how much that motivated me until I wasn’t doing them anymore, and so it’s going to be a thing I try to do continually from here on out. Which means, yeah, the return of Bailout. But it’ll be a tag this time and not a category. For whatever that’s worth.

And yes, the novel that I’ve been writing for God only knows how long will be readable in 2009. Some folks already know how, but on the first everyone will know how.

Oh, one last thing. Only the blog and its related services will be moving there. The forums are staying right here at TFO.net, and the old blog will stay up in a read-only format for a year or so.

Anyway, yeah. Hope everyone had a good weekend and holiday– things are gonna change around here.

12.25.08

Warmest Wishes

Posted in Site News at 2:30 pm

I hope that you and yours are all safe on this Christmas Day, and I’d like to offer my own wishes that this year, and every year, is the best year of your life.

I’ll catch you folks on Monday with some interesting tidbits about 2009’s plans.

GAME CLEARED: Castle Crashers (360)

Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming at 2:24 pm

At 2:24p, I defeated the Evil Wizard, final boss of Castle Crashers on Xbox Live Arcade. This is the fortieth game cleared in 2008. Game was cleared over 116 days.

No further games are scheduled to be cleared in 2008.

GAME CLEARED: Dash of Destruction (360)

Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming at 11:22 am

On December 20, 2008, I completed the final achievement in Dash of Destruction on Xbox Live Arcade. This is the thirty-ninth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Chrono Trigger (DS), followed by Castle Crashers (360) and Psychonauts (Xbox). Game was cleared over one hour. It was not initially considered a clear, but counts as one anyway due to having collected all of the achievements.

12.23.08

Demolitionist: Crystal Defenders (iPhone/iPod Touch)

Posted in Demolitionist, Gaming at 7:59 pm

Square-Enix’s first foray into the world of iPhone gaming brings us this wonderful little gem, a port/compilation of three DoCoMo games that we’d never see otherwise (since DoCoMo is a Japan-only cell phone standard). While it’s primarily a simple tower defense-style game (at least in the W1 chapter provided in the demo), it does it with the charm and style familiar to players of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games, borrowing most heavily from the recent A2. Bear this in mind: I had never, to this point, played a tower defense game for more than ten minutes, thinking they were largely boring; the implementations of the genre that I’d tinkered with were atrociously hard or too simplistic. I’m still not entirely sold on the concept, but at least I know it’s not as boring as I’d expected; while the gameplay limits the kind of strategy involved, it’s still very fun.

Many folks who’ve played the demo have complained about the control scheme used; the game divides the screen in two, with the top screen being the display and the bottom screen being a virtual cross-pad as one might find on any recent traditional cell phone. This seems kind of clunky at first, but you can still touch the top screen to jump the cursor as you see fit. I think it works pretty well, given the game’s roots, but at the same time I think the controls could have been made a bit smaller to provide more real estate for the main graphics.

I didn’t buy the game– not yet, anyway; it’s on my list for a future date. Still, I have to say that it’s a recommended purchase if you dig tower defense, and if it prompts Square-Enix to port over more of its cell phone games (or, heaven forbid, prompts other companies with significant mobile divisions to consider the English-speaking market; I’m looking at you, Capcom), all the better. It’s a good first foot forward for S-E’s mobile division.

GAME CLEARED: Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (360)

Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming at 6:48 pm

At 6:11p, I completed Official Mode with Amuro Ray in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam on the Xbox 360. This is the thirty-eighth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Chrono Trigger (DS), followed by Psychonauts (Xbox) and Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP). Final clear time was 4 hours over an unknown number of days.

12.21.08

Have Yourself Some Merry Little Irony

Posted in Rants at 7:09 pm

Today I was out, and I came across a rack of cheap, $1 DVDs labeled “Christmas Fireplace”. The concept’s not unknown to me; basically, it’s just two hours of a camera focused on a fireplace. I didn’t buy one, thinking I had no need for it…

…and then, when I got home, I saw that one of the newest additions to the Xbox Marketplace was a $5 applet called, appropriately enough, “Fireplace” that does the exact same thing, only worse: it’s only five minutes looping. I did not buy that, either.

Of course now I want to go back and get the $1 DVD. What does that say about me, I wonder?

GAME CLEARED: Rock Band 2 (360)

Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming at 4:24 pm

At 4:16p, I completed the Rolling Stone Rock Immortals setlist in Rock Band 2 on the Xbox 360. This is the thirty-seventh game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Psychonauts (Xbox), followed by Chrono Trigger (DS) and Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP). Game was cleared over 98 days.

12.17.08

GAME CLEARED: Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming at 8:46 pm

At 8:33p, I defeated Seraph Lamington, final boss of Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness on the PSP. This is the thirty-sixth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Chrono Trigger (DS), followed by Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP) and Psychonauts (Xbox). Final clear time was 55:33 over 96 days.

12.12.08

Bleary Commander

Posted in Rants at 6:09 am

Had a blast at the concert last night; little short but then again it was still worth it. Not much else to say except that Bang Camaro sure know how to put on a show. I don’t think I’ll be willing to miss them the next time they swing by Pittsburgh, whenever that may be.

In other news holy crap am I tired.