Infernal Images: Invisible Buttseks

Youtube and I: Real UK Dragonball Z Audio

"You have to help MEEEEEEEEEEEE???!!!"

Infernal Images: Fake Recipie

Youtube and I: 197 Foot Hockey Goal

La Pucelle Tactics Review

Platform: PS2

The Quick Version

The Good:

- There are separate “Begin Battle” and “End Turn” commands, which give you a lot a flexibility and let you undo most mistakes.

- Travel between areas is instantaneous, so backtracking isn’t as tedious.

- Travel between conquered areas of a dungeon is also instantaneous.

- The story, while somewhat cliché, still manages to throw a twist or two that you won’t be expecting.

- The main character isn’t the useless piece of shit you usually have to deal with in JRPGs.

- Monsters are quirky and quite entertaining.

The Bad:

- With two or three exceptions, your party will become very useless in short order.

- Special attacks (spells and whatnot) activate instantly, so once you use one, you can’t undo it.

- You can’t turn off attack animations, so in later dungeons, expect to be waiting a long, long time.

- The story in general is very uninteresting.

- Almost everyone except the main character is worthless or a total asshole.

- The “arrange” function only serves to make your inventory even more disorganized. Also, there’s no “arrange manually” option.

- There are only three ways to organize your party: humans first, monsters first, and by level.

- The Dark World dungeons start the unholy tradition of randomly generated optional maps (that are invariably hideous) that would plague future Nippon Ichi titles.

The Ugly:

- While technically taking place over three different continents, everything in the game feels like it’s within walking distance of your house.

- The final area of the game has a teleporter maze. Good fucking luck.

- The main game can be finished before you reach level 50, but the strongest enemy in the game is level 2000 (that’s not a typo).

Rating: 2/5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Long Version

Background:

La Pucelle Tactics is a tactical turn-based RPG made by Nippon Ichi Software, which is better known for the Disgaea series. I like to think of La Pucelle as the proto-Disgaea, since many of the concepts present here reappear other Nippon Ichi games (and also because I’ve never been able to find Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, which came even before La Pucelle). More on that later. Many of you will recognize this as “that game”. Yes, that game you always see in the PS2 section of your local Gamestop and briefly consider buying before ignoring it in favor of something that doesn’t have “tactics” in the title. If this applies to you, then you have probably made a wise decision.

Plot Synopsis:

Prier is a sister in the Church of the Holy Maiden who also works as a demon hunter who is 16 years old (though her size in relation to other characters gives me the impression that 12 would be more accurate). In the world’s mythos, the fallen angel Calamity has a servant known as the Dark Prince who occasionally pops up to smack humanity around a bit. There’s also the Maiden of Light, who gives the asshole a kick in the nuts and tells him to make his own dinner. Now, when you picture someone called the Maiden of Light, do you think of a violent, loud ogre of a woman who beats the crap out of her brother and primarily attacks by ballshotting people or beating them to death with a blunt object? Despite wanting to become the game’s equivalent of Jesus, that’s exactly what Prier is. The first half of the game consists of lending a hand to the helpless locals and beating up their tormentors. For instance, you have to kill one guy who is convinced that ripping out people’s hearts Temple of Doom style will bring his wife back to life. There’s also another guy who is duped into buying a hair growth spray that creates furball monsters. The second half of the game is serious business, and you get to act more like a real adventuring party than the town’s militia. I’ll leave it at that for fear of spoiling the few twists that the game has.

With the exception of those twists, which I can count on one hand, the story is horribly uninteresting. It’s not entirely predictable, but it fails to draw you in.

Characters of Note:

Culotte – He’s the little brother character who is just as useless in combat as he is in the story. The only interesting thing about him is that his standard attack has him throwing school supplies while his ultimate attack involves a rocket, a stuffed cat, and said cat’s anus. Funny, right? The funny part is that I’m not kidding.

Alouette – She is Prier’s superior and a total bigot. She also has amnesia, which automatically makes her a shitty character. Later, she turns from a stupid crusader character into a stupid Jesus character who can do “miracles” and kill herself for the plot’s sake.

Croix – Yet another character with amnesia. Unlike Alouette, however, he isn’t a bigot. Instead, he’s a pedophile and Prier’s love interest. Considering how both of the people whom he’s romantically involved with during the game are half his size and look half his age, I can’t come to any other conclusion. He’s pretty handy in combat, having a gun and all. It’s too bad you can only use him for half the game.

Éclair – She is one of the many things in this game named after food items in addition to being a princess and wielding a lance twice her size. She is completely worthless until you find out she has a multiple personality disorder and unlock Dark Éclair, who has a beam lance. The game calls it an “aura lance,” but fuck that. It looks like it came out of Gundam. She would be totally awesome if she didn’t look like a ten year old running around in a bondage outfit.

Homard – He’s an air pirate. Yarr. He captains a giant blimp with a crew of cute little cat people and his butterfly mutant girlfriend thing who’s about as big as a water bottle. He also falls in love with Éclair, which leads me to believe he isn’t an actual sky pirate so much as he is a child molester.

Game Mechanics:

The combat in La Pucelle is both a blessing and a horrid curse. As I said earlier, it is a tactical, turn-based RPG. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, then just think of Napoleonic battles where people stand next to each other and take turns shooting. In La Pucelle’s case, all your characters start each battle inside your Base Panel, from which you deploy them to wage war with baddies. After you’re done moving your guys around and selecting targets, you can either press “End Turn” or “Begin Battle”. The latter executes all of your currently set actions, while allowing you to act with anyone you haven’t moved yet. Thus, if you fuck up and order your caster to whack the nasty grizzly bear, you can either cancel the action before doing anything else or if you “Begin Battle” before you notice, you can cover him with stronger units. The exceptions to this are special abilities and spells, which activate immediately. Thus, if you accidentally get your allies caught up in an area effect attack, you can’t cancel it. I found this extremely annoying.

An unfortunate flaw in the game is the inability to skip combat animations. That minute-long sequence of the giant cat with a rocket in its butt crash landing may be funny the first five times, but you won’t be pleased when your enemies’ turn takes three whole minutes.

You can also convert monsters to join your cause by purifying them. I’m not quite sure how it works. Perhaps your characters tie the monster in question to a chair and flog them until they submit. Unless you’re particularly fond of grinding out levels, you won’t be using monsters too often.

There are a few other concepts like weapon leveling, augmented stat growth, and dark portals, but I found none of them to be particularly important. I’ll spare you the reading.

Rating:

La Pucelle Tactics is an amusing little game, but it fails to impress on nearly every level. Long combat animations quickly bog down the battle system, the story is about as interesting as anything on G4 TV, the inventory and party menus are just for show, and there is no sense of scale whatsoever (characters of similar ages vary wildly in size and the world feels incredibly small). La Pucelle has the basis for a good game, but fails to utilize any of its potential by settling for a generic story and set of characters instead. While its debilitating lack of polish would be fixed in its spiritual successor, Disgaea, La Pucelle will have to settle for a 2/5.

Rating Scale

I'll be throwing out a lot more reviews in the near future, so I might as well give you guys my review scale. I think the ten point system is a piece of shit, so there are only five points in mine. After all, either something's good or it's not. Therefore, the 2-5 ratings are saved for good things whereas the 1 rating is for anything that is mediocre or outright bad. To elaborate:

5: Masterpiece - You absolutely have to see/play this or I will personally tie you to a chair and force you to. A perfect score isn't something I take lightly, either. You won't see me tossing these out to just anything (unlike certain review sites).

4: Excellent - With only a few minor flaws (or possibly one big one that the title overcomes), I highly recommend shows/games that I give this rating to.

3: Good - "Above average" is the key term here. While they won't blow your mind, these will definitely not waste your time. One significant flaw or 2+ large flaws will bring an excellent title down to this rating.

2: Serviceable - Bugginess (for video games), incompleteness, or an overall lack of polish mar these otherwise good titles. While certain aspects prove to be enjoyable, other flaws constantly taint the overall experience.

1: Shit - I don't care if it's just boring or if it truly sucks donkey dick in the traditional sense. Titles that are average in the eyes of the current media fall into this category regardless. Titles that try something extraordinary, but come up short are much more likely to earn at least a 2 rating than cookie-cutter titles that only settle for the status quo.

Infernal Images: Famous Works of Art

Youtube and I: The Potion

Infernal Images: Pedobear?!

Just a placeholder until I catch up on updates.

Infernal Images: Good Job, Russia.

Youtube and I: Stupid Americans

Maniacal Machinations: Words of Wisdom 2

"Pepper spray? That sounds delicious! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I was wrong! I was horribly wrong!"

Maniacal Machinations: New Game +

It seems like a common feature in modern games is the New Game +. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, a New Game + is essentially when you start a new game except with most of your stats and items. This by itself is pretty cool. It gives the game some replay value and is convenient for people who want to experience the game again. However, where there's a New Game Plus, there's also usually bullshit.

I'd like to offer Disgaea 2 as an example. Most of the enemies there cap out around level 500 in normal play. So what happens when you throw a level 4000 enemy in there? That's where New Game Plus comes in. Hell, why not add some exclusive NG+ content too?

Herein lies the problem. What if I don't want to play the fucking game all over again? Is being able to accomplish everything on one playthrough too much to ask? Regardless of how much I like a game, it gets old eventually. If it's a game I only liked a bit, then that's even worse. At this point, you have to take other factors into account like the occasional unskippable cutscene. In a worst case scenario, imagine playing Xenosaga all the way through twice without being able to skip the movies. Seeing as you spend more than half of the game watching cutscenes, that wouldn't be too fun.

So what's the lesson to be learned? I should either be able to do it in one shot or not at all.

Infernal Images: Qubeguy?!

Rose & Camellia

Bitch fight time! As this blog describes it, this is "Mike Tyson's punchout reimagined by Jane Austen". A tablet PC makes this easier, but not by much.

Youtube and I: Top Gear Ground Force

Hold on a minute. Why is an auto show doing an episode on landscaping to begin with?

Infernal Images: Oh Shi-!

Maniacal Machinations: Ding Dong The Witch is Dead

So apparently, after an ungodly long time, the abomination of a manga known as Inuyasha is finally biting the dust. Looks like Rumiko Takahashi ran out of ways cockblock everyone's favorite awkward couple so they can finally move onto an awkward relationship, awkward sex, awkward marriage, and have awkward kids. As you can see, I care oh so much.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the ending amounts to "The manga ends here, but the story continues in the anime- Wait a minute . . . TIME PARADOX!"

I never really cared for Inuyasha, but I'll take great joy in knowing that fangirls around the world will be BAWWWWing themselves to sleep for the next year.

As Scott Ramsoomair once said, "It's freaking Dragonball Z for girls!"

Youtube and I: TF2 More Griefing

I missed yesterday's post, so you'll get two today. Isn't it exciting?

No?

Well, fuck you. :P


TEAM ROOMBA PRESENTS: More Team Fortress 2 Griefing from FLOOR_MASTER on Vimeo.

BGM (Blogground music)

I've seen some really nice blog formats, and some really horrible ones (400X300px body text frame? You gotta be kidding me...), and I think they're all fine even if the colour scheme is some ungodly combination of bright purples and greens that makes Eva-01 want to rip its eyes out.

But there's one thing that immediately puts any blog on my do-not-visit list regardless of flair, and that's blog music. Crappy blog music. Auto-playing blog music without a stop button. Any and all of the above. Without exception, without fail (well, with lots of FAIL actually, but you get the point).

I have my own music. I listen to my own music. I don't want to hear your crappy music, even if you love the band to bits and have posters of them (I don't want to know about the dakimakura >_>). So when crappy music intrudes into my playlist without my permission, that's it.

There are proper ways to do background music (where appropriate!), and ways not to do it. Songs with lyrics? No. Songs with more than 5 or 6 instruments at any point in time? No. Loud music? No. Subtle, non-intrusive, simple, loop-safe music? Yes, under certain conditions.

Maniacal Machinations: Forum Signatures

What the hell is with people throwing every damn image in their photobucket into their sig? Oh, wait, it's not just pictures either. We can't forget really shitty poems.

You know that cool wallpaper that you found on 4chan? Why should you keep it to yourself when you can chuck that fucker onto your sig? Share the joy, right? Hell, no one's going to mind if your sig is longer than Ireland. Does your sig take ten minutes to load? That's perfectly normal. Maybe other people are interested in your "harem" of anime women. Throw that up too. Myspace? eBay page? Gamertag? Obligatory videogame quote? A link to Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series (which isn't that funny by the way)? Gaia page? Old geocities site? Sure, why not? Why not throw up your fucking autobiography while you're at it? There's nothing wrong with your sig being bigger than your god damn post.

Two inches max, folks. Two inches max.

Youtube and I: Buttholes Ep.1

A shitload of LSD will make this a billion times more enjoyable. It's really stupid, but I couldn't stop watching . . .



Remember:
1. Never set spikes
2. Watch out for clouds
3. Lay those bricks down

Fun and Games... Not really

Hi guys/girls. Maiden post here =)

A group I'm involved in (descriptions masked to protect the innocent) organised a day of fun and games, which I just returned from. Admittedly it wasn't half bad (although it was overcast and I didn't quite manage to get the slight tan I wanted), but once again it reminds me of why I hate "orientation camps", "day-o-fun" and other similar activities. Well, ok, maybe "hate" is a little extreme, just put it down as "dislike", or "do not find any fun in" if you are averse to strongly emotional words.

First of all, I like well-planned, well-executed stuff. Rules must be well-explained, and not subject to changing in the middle of chaos. Conditions should be made as fair as possible to all teams. Once this rule is flouted in any major way, I will shrug off all semblances of competitiveness and simply treat the activity as another Day of Fun and Relaxation (TM). I suspect this usually doesn't bode well with some team members and the organisers in general, because I tend to hear things such as "Why are you not running? You are the last team, c'mon catch up catch up!!!"

Secondly, I hate it when people tend to get overly excited and emotional. I don't like it because they tend to do stuff that doesn't pass through the thinking-and-logic filter, and such stuff is usually ridiculous enough to make the logically-thinking side of me break down. That in turn pisses me off and makes me overly excited and emotional, and I hate to be overly excited and emotional because I usually end up saying stuff that I will later regret. And when I have to try very hard to not be overly excited and emotional, it wears me out and makes me tired and sleepy and in need of a nice long sip of Ice-Blended Caramel at a side cafe, and since this is never allowed in the rules (for no good reason I can see) many parties end up being unhappy, which further exacerbates the overly-excited-and-emotional situation.

Thirdly, if any money is spent on such activities (as is always the case for freshmen orientation camps held at local universities), they are spent on useless activities like going to parties/clubs, water-bombing, buying carbonated drinks and mixes and stuff I don't like, need or want. Since such expenses can quickly add up to half the cost of a decent hard drive per camp, you can see how such activities would in all likelihood irk me even before I get started on them.

I won't deny that I had fun at the activity. But if you ask me if I could have done something more fun and enjoyable the answer is yes. Unless, of course, said activity happens to be organised by real geeks with real organisation and execution skills and involves a game of physical pong or something equally ridiculously geeky and funny, and not *yaawwwnnnn* yet another checkpoint game of treasure hunt, charades or any multitude of overused and overexploited activities.

[Disclaimer: As you discerning readers might already be able to tell, this post was written with a highly biased lens and is an exaggeration of the author's actual feelings and opinions on the subject (but I swear if an unknown stranger tries to drag me to such an activity I will strangle him with his entrails suppress all murderous intent with every ounce of being and, with a beaming smile of bloodlust politely turn him away). That part about needing a fix of ice-blended caramel is true though, as is the fact that all orientation camps cost money. I don't deny that such activities are usually fun for and possibly beneficial to most of the participants involved but if you want their opinion they are plentiful on Myspace. This is the other side of the coin.]

Infernal Images: Gundam Rape?!

Oh my . . .

Youtube and I: SSBB Theme Song Interpretation

Maniacal Machinations: Around the World Map #1

In my infinite boredom, I found myself staring at a world map and searching for strange city names. While it wasn't the most recent of maps (it had Zaire, for christ's sake), I'm betting most of these cities still exist:

Arsenic Tubs, Arizona
Why, Arizona
Medicine Hat, Canada
Hell, Norway
Fucking, Austria
Condom, France
Beaverlick, Kentucky
Hornyhead Mountain, North Carolina
Lawyersville, New York

Infernal Images: Advice

Youtube and I: Shockwave's Burden

I found this absolutely hilarious parody dub of some scenes from Transformers:

Maniacal Machinations: At the Fair part 2

I'll skip the part where I went on the rides because those were damn fun for me and thus, will probably be rather boring for you.

On the verge of puking, I sought out a remedy. My options were caramel apples, crusty popcorn, or water from the duck pool. I took my chances and got an apple. While I was waiting in line, though, I heard the guy in front of me say, "I'll take one with nuts and one with plain." Strange, I never realized "plain" was a topping I had to request. Regardless, I began taking bites out of my apple (which is harder than you'd think considering how easy it is to get caramel all over yourself) while I made my way to the respectable vendors that pitched their tents just a few yards from the edge of the fair. I'm sorry, did I say respectable vendors? I meant flea market. Honestly, I've never seen so many people selling scented candles in my life. I guess bake sales are out of style or something.

Disgusted with the paltry selection, I went to the food vendors in hopes of experiencing a wide variety of delicacies from all the various cultures of the world. What I ended up getting was a cheeseburger and a Dr. Pepper. Don't get me wrong, it was a damn good cheeseburger.

Anyway, there was this band on stage that was playing Green Day's Basket Case. To my surprise, they were doing a much better job. Then again, it's not too hard to outdo Green Day, is it?

Well, that's it for my adventures at the fair, folks. This part didn't come out anywhere near as well as the first one, but at least I didn't just post an image macro . . .

Maniacal Machinations: At the Fair part 1

I went to a local fair yesterday. You know, the ones with those ripoff booth games and rides that look like they'd fall apart if I stared too hard at them. Yup, definitely a recipe for a good time.

I know they're ripoffs, but I'm a sucker for carnie games. Firstly, I hit the game where you have to roll a ball into a hole to move a mechanical horse to the finish line. It wasn't just one hole either. I had three holes of three different types to stick my balls in. The first set got my horse as far as a real horse would go if I gave it a shove. The second set . . . well, I never figured out how well those worked, though I'd assume that it'd make my horse move like sonic in a 3D game. Now, the third set of holes was serious fucking business. I'm talking 2D sonic here. That was my hypothesis, anyway. I never actually found out because while I was tempted to reach in and just dump the ball in the good hole, but the guy running the game was already looking at me since I was the only one there over the age of ten.

After recovering my shattered ego, I went to the whack-a-mole game (though it wasn't called that for reasons of copyright). Once again, I was faced with my nemesis: prepubescent children. I was pumped-up and ready to go. Hell, I'd have taken the game to town if it weren't for one thing: the five inch chord binding the hammer to the machine. It should go without saying that being bent over like a man taking it up the- I mean a fifteen year old trying to play Chopin on a Fisher-Price xylophone wasn't the ideal way to do it. I can only assume the chord was there to keep psychopaths like myself from throwing the hammer at the operator in frustration. Surprisingly enough, I managed to outdo my grade-school rivals and was able to claim a memento of my victory: a carnie prize. I had a choice between a dark green frog and a light green frog. Decisions, decisions . .

Next, I spotted a pair of target practice games. One involved using a BB handgun to shoot at novelty targets while the other involved throwing baseballs at milk cans. Recalling my previous experiences with baseballs (one of which involved me pegging a bystander), I opted for the gun. Turns out I wasn't much better with plastic firearms. Then again, the fact that the targets were about as big as the member of anyone reading this. Well, at least I didn't hit anyone this time.

Sulking past the deathtraps known as Ring Toss and Test Your Strength, I happened upon a balloon popping game. Having thrown many a sharp object in my time, I figured this was the perfect game for me. Alas, fortune was against me. 20 mph winds, lead-lined balloons, and darts about as sharp as the wit of a Newgrounds flash maker conspired to separate myself and the five-cent, mass-produced plush toys most likely made in China. Against all odds, I did hit enough balloons to get a prize, though. To my dismay, however, I was presented with a trio of abominations which included what I could only assume was supposed to be a dog with its face melted-off. I passed on the prizes.

Although I gave up on the carnie games at this point, I passed a booth with absolutely no signs, a pool filled with rubber ducks and balls, and a bin of inflatable giant hammers. Being the kind of person who likes to know the rules before playing a game, I poured my immense intellectual resources into figuring out what in bloody hell I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to catch a very specific ball? Was the net I'm using rigged to fall apart? Was this a race? Maybe-

"Just catch a duck."
"Huh?"
"All you have to do is catch a duck."

Thinking this too good to be true, I warily scooped up a large, blue duck.

"Yay, you won. Here's your hammer."

Only after taking a few steps away from the booth did I realize that the game was made for kindergartners and all I had to do was grab a damn duck. Lovely. Just lovely . . .

Come back next time for the second installment in this misadventure!