I’ve got a little black book with my poems in.

I’ve been writing a rather odd king of fanfiction these days. Came up out of a very old idea my brother and I once had, and it was an actually interesting way to make our own fan characters seem actually interesting.

Of course, chances are that this project is going to fail miserably once I publish each chapter. I’ll expect not-so-good reviews.

Kung Fu class today was awesome, as well as informative. Learned some new techniques, as well as got an incredibly good workout.

Winsauce day, eh?

-HolyJunkie.

Is there anybody out there? (X4 lol)

Good day today. Got everything for work that needed finishing by the end of Summer done, got money for new laptop, which I shall get Monday or Tuesday, awesome rounds of Nazi Zombies, and pizza.

I’m thinking of making a new movie, though.

… Yeah, that’s it…

I wish I had something worth discussing and making a 800-2000-word post about something that won’t have an obvious possibility of getting me in unecessary trouble… like just about anything religion-based.

Well, apart from the fact that I say that religion frickin’ sucks.

… Yeah, that’s it. Deja vu.

-HolyJunkie.

Review: Sonic Chronicles – The Dark Brotherhood

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood: Mario & Luigi with Sonic characters, and a significant ramp-up in difficulty.

—

My first experience with platformer-origin’ed RPGs started with the old Mario RPG for the SNES. I enjoyed it then, so I figured “Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga must be pretty cool as well!”

Was I right? Of course I was. I enjoyed Superstar Saga, and I enjoyed Partners In Time as well.

So if it worked for Mario, it could work for Sonic, right?

Of course it does! For one, it’s made by Bioware… Yeah, that’s it. That’s all it really needs, though.

The control system, when I first checked it out through videos and such, made me think “This is gonna be awkward…” and I agree, the control system is a little odd if you’re new to it.

Despite the odd-ness, it’s actually incredibly easy to pick up. As a result, I spent a good load of hours enjoying myself- especially riffing all the side-quests and assorted dialogue that doesn’t really do much except aid in relationships with other characters, get extra items to help me kick ass, among other things.

Speaking of characters and story, Bioware has serious balls to do some of the stuff they did in the game. I’d rather not spoil it for you, but when I get into spoilers, I’ll let you all know.

The combat scenario includes turn-based forms that reminded me a lot of Phantasy Star 2, where each character has a number of moves he/she can pull off in a round. A super-fast character like Sonic can pull off three moves in one turn, while your average bad guy and other character can use one or two moves.

If you tell a character to just full-on attack, it spends all of the actions for attack moves. However, you can use items and abilities to spend one action point, and use action points in just about any order.

Unlike Phantasy Star 2, you can actually see what action points there are left… which is a serious plus.

The Special Abilities use their own unique combination of “buttons” that you tap on the touch screen. There are ones where you hold the stylus down and keep the stylus with the button as it takes a set path. There are some where you time the tapping. There are others where you just tap the hell out of until you win.

Every ability has its own combination, and that would mean you’d need to get every one of them into your rhythm. While that may seem overwhelming, it’s not that difficult… sort of…

There are special abilities which are required to heal your group or cause status effects. If they’re not “standard attacks” of sorts, you seriously need to be careful and get them right.

If you miss one, you fail that technique entirely and lose the power points you spent to start that technique.

That gets relatively frutstrating, to be honest. Especially during boss fights.

In Tales of Symphonia (Another game that’s actually in my Top 5, alongside Republic Commando and the Metroid Prime Trilogy) the Tech system’s a little different. For special attacks, you instantly spend a load of mana to pull off, and said tech can be blocked or interrupted. I find that to be okay.

For magic, you get a charge-up sequence that can be interrupted. The plus of that is that mana points are not spent until the spell is actually pulled off. Even then, the spell could be blocked, or in some cases, avoided… somehow.

As for Sonic Chronicles, it’s got an interesting system that’s actually quite fun to use once you get the hang of it, but it can get extremely frustrating.

Another thing I liked to notice is that as I levelled-up, monster encounters seemed to last exactly as long as previous encounters. I noticed then that the monsters got their own stats boosted to continue to give me a challenge. What I liked about this system was that no monster got an extreme boost in power, and make my fights gruesome and difficult.

I actually liked it.

—

Now then, before the Final Fantasy nerds all start going “Shame on you, HolyJunkie. You never got into details about the story! And you never mentioned which FF was your favorite!”

… I’m just assuming. Anyway, I’ve only played Final Fantasy 7, and even then, I couldn’t continue it due to the fact that my program kept on crashing at the first Chocobo race. As such, while I found the plot interesting, it started to go down-hill as soon as I left Midgar. Can’t really discuss the combat system, though. It’s generic, but that’s not bad or anything.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Anyway, as I said before, Bioware did stuff that Sega wouldn’t do, which made me think “Good lord, this game company from my home town has some serious balls. I commend them for their near-indestructible granite balls.

First off, they gave Amy an apparent boyfriend named Dexter.

Seriously not kidding.

Secondly, they gave you the option to make Sonic the biggest jack-ass you’ve ever seen… While that’s something you need to make an RPG feel more “open,” that’s something Sega wouldn’t do.

I liked the choices in general, even though they ultimately were a little limited. Some could say the same thing about Mass Effect, from what I’ve heard.

Thirdly, they made Knuckles not the last Echidna in the universe. I was like “Bioware… Dude!”

Actually, when I think about it now, that’s a plot twist Sega never seemed to look on, even though I did. I found it to be as predictable as the rising sun, but the fact that sega never did it until Bioware still gave me whiplash.

Although the one thing I didn’t expect, but didn’t exactly appreciate is the fact that Shade is an Echidna in a suit… And she apparently wears make-up and looks frickin’ weird.

Also, her leader has a beard that apparently roots from out of his mouth… Seriously, he’s a walking mindfuck.

Oh yeah, the plot uses chaos emeralds and the Master Emerald as plot devices… Kinda weak.

I won’t discuss this any longer, mainly because I have stuff to do… and also because I haven’t gotten further than that in the game.

Review: Shadow Complex

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an incredible fan of Metroid. The idea of being an armored space marine with infinite ammo, blowing away baddies while rushing through rooms has a certain charm to it. Combine the shooting with expert platformimg, and those kinds of games turn out to have some skill to them. Maybe even moreso than most FPSes out there these days.

The latest addition to the 2D action/adventure platformer shooter games is a game called Shadow Complex, on the Xbox Live Arcade. Let me tell you this:

It is fun. Very fun. Easily worth the 1200 points. It’s made by a company called “Chair” (I can’t figure out why it’s familiar) and Epic Games.

Epic Games, home of cinematic “prowess,” the Unreal Engine, and the most hilarious ragdolls physics I’ve ever seen.

I say “Prowess” because while they’re damn good at camera placement, their animation could be better. Their characters unnecesarily bob their heads on occasion. It reminds me of a thing I like to call “Capcom Non-Anime Animation Syndrome.”

Most obvious candidate that suffers from that is Dead Rising, where Frank West is swinging his arms for no good reason while speaking.

Anyway, Shadow Complex:

Actually, before I get into the game itself, I’ve read up on it, and it’s based on the Orson Scott Card novel Empire. It apparently serves as a dovetail to the book’s sequel, Hidden Empire. While I never read any of his books, I’ve heard of them, and seeing how this game went, I’d like to give reading his stuff a try.

I mean, Shadow Complex sort of just proved to me that “any movie or novel-based games is going to suck” has its own exceptions, or maybe it isn’t an exception. Either way, a fun game should easily translate to an awesome precursor book… right?

Right. I digress. Shadow Complex:

You play Frank West’s stunt double… No, not really.

You play a guy named Jason Flemming, who looks a hell of a lot like Frank West, except less buff-ness, more thin-ness, and more bad-ass. He also has an odd tendency of talking to himself, which is actually used to try to progress the ultimately shallow plot.

I’m into games for the plot primarily. To be honest, Shadow Complex by itself has not as good a plot as some would expect. You and princess are out in the woods, playing hide and seek, while any REAL couple hiding in the woods “SHOULD” be doing something completely different. Princess gets lost. Hero goes to kick ass. Princess is in another castle, keep going until you discover a secret plot that may doom humanity, save the fucking world.

Actually, when I think about it now, the simplicity gives Shadow Complex a new charm to it. Almost the same kind as when I first played Metroid Games.

The plot was simple: Samus is ordered by the Galactic Federation to go on a planet and BLOW THE LIVING HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING!

Even in Metroid Fusion, it was generally the same thing. While there was more dialogue and a plot twist that I actually found unexpectedly AWESOME, it was still generic. It had its own charm to it.

Same thing with Shadow Complex… Maybe I should call this Shadroid for short… Nevermind…

Anyway, early on, you find that Jason’s girlfriend, Claire, had been taken by advanced-looking soldiers hiding in what just so happened to be the exact same cave you and your bitch girlfriend went to play hide and seek in.

When Jason finds out that Claire’s being interrogated, he gets a flashback to when he’s talking to his father, and we learn that the guy turned out to be an Elite Soldier who- despite the intense training- never signed on; reasoning that he never wanted to kill people.

Of course, it was this point that made me think “Hot-damn, that’s actually pretty ingenious writing.

His father told him that “We fight because we have something worth fighting for. Sometime in the future, when you have something you want to protect, you’ll change your tune.”

Of course, technically it would fall flat on its face because we ALL know that we’re playing this game to pop caps in the asses of technologically-advanced soldiers. I personally found it to be ingeniously-written at that point.

In fact, I never really got to notice one plothole in the story of Shadow Complex whatsoever.

Anyway, I get a pistol, and I pop caps in asses. The sounds for the guns are actually quite intriguing. I rather liked them. Which brings me to the combat.

The combat system is actually pretty well-made. You can score headshots by taking careful aim at a soldier’s head, and hit detection is actually pretty good. I never once started to rant out “COME ON! THAT SHOT HIT! SCREW YOU, PHYSICS AND SCIENCE!” when I was planning to get one guy in the face almost right in front of me.

Of course, there were parts where I planned to snipe someone from afar, and when I took the shot, the soldier heard the shot and ducked- dodging the shot altogether. That’s fine, though. The guy’s supposed to be made for fighting. He’d have good reaction time, no-doubt… unlike myself.

[Disclaimer: HolyJunkie actually has pretty decent reaction time.]

There’s also the fact that it’s a long range, and bullets aren’t as fast as they should be. (for obvious reasons… like gameplay.)

One sec, this is good cereal…

You know, it just struck me that this game has a lot in common with Dead Rising. Replay value, one man Vs. all. Cool, yer over-the-top-ish boss fights, and above all, the RPG elements.

As you level up, there are three main categories that are boosted automatically. Accuracy, Precision, and Stamina.

I’ll be honest. I don’t even know what they actually do. I can assume that accuracy decreases bullet spread, but what do they really do? Because I don’t notice much difference.

I should look it up once I’m done writing this.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Shadow Compex’s dialogue is ultimately half-assed, which reminds me even more of Dead Rising.

Lets see… what else did I miss… Oh yeah, the controls in general.

My only complaint about the controls is that the aiming system is a little too sensitive for my liking, and when I’m no longer manually aiming, I aim straight ahead of myself. Not only that, but there’s an auto-aim that actually does work for me that would make the manual aim pretty useless.

Of course, that’s not exactly true. Sometimes Jason would rather aim at an explosive barrel rather than the man five miles away from said barrel about to shove a rocket up Jason’s ass.

Apart from the aiming system being only slightly dodgy, the controls are actually incredibly well-made.  I always find it satisfying to wall-jump up elevator shafts or other shaft-like places. I always find it satisfying to boost up ladders. I even find it satisfying to die.

There are some points where there’s electrified water that kills you almost immediately upon entry, and there are other traps that atomize you almost instantly upon entry. Fortunately, you have one chance to get the hell out of there using quick, well-timed jumps.

But the thing is, my first experience with these insta-death traps was a pool of electrified water. Without a second thought, I jumped in, and suddenly Jason got atomized.

I was like “WAAAAAAAT!????!” and then I laughed for two minutes straight.

A second instance was when I got the Speed Boost thing. I was trying to perfect running through an S-shaped tunnel, and when I finally did it, I rushed into a room and fell into a durging power conduit of some kind and got instantly vaporized.

I laughed for five minutes then.

Dying in Shadow Complex is actually pretty gruesome, and making kills using the melee button will take a long time before it gets old. As soon as you get the Powered Armor, melee attacks are always satisfying.

I can’t count the number of times when I refused to use my gun and instead charge in, dodge bullets, and Falcon-Punch a guy so hard in the crotch that he’s sent across the entire room. This game can sometimes be the most hilarious experience you’d ever have.

It’s over-the-top, ultimately unrealistic, and yet it tries so hard to be realistic.

Here’s where I’m going into real spoilers. Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers.

In the final battle, you’re taking on an army of Spider tanks, choppers, soldiers, walkers, and a gigantic airship armed with nuclear weapons. How do you expect to kill it?

Use the three conveniently-placed tactical nuclear silos to BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF THE AIRSHIP!

So I did… and I won. It was relatively confusing at-first, but then I figured out how the silos worked.

The game is worth getting. It’s a bit on the short side, but that was me trying to rush through it so I can have more time to get Sonic Chronicles done so I can make a review on that game as well.

Not to say that Shadow Complex isn’t as good as Sonic Chronicles. I just have reviewing to do.

-HolyJunkie.

Together we stand, divided we fall.

Yesterday morning, the Xbox got back earlier than we expected. Lucky us. Anyway, that’s about the reason why I never got a post out.

Nazi Zombies required killing.

Past two days were generic, but included me recovering from last week… but today, I’ve got a headache… and a bit hungry.

Oh yeah, I’ve got two games to finish and review… This’ll take a while.

-HolyJunkie.

Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all.

So as it turns out, the source of my allergen problems turned out to be my own computer chair.

… Yeah…

To be honest, I’m not surprised at the fact that it’s my chair- which had been falling apart the past two years, and I’ve had for nearly five. The thing that surprised me instead was the fact that I never suspected my chair until late last night when I went to bed.

Anyway, it’s morning now. I still have resident rashes, alongside slight sickly feeling. But I’m betting that after doing one more clean-up of my bed, everything will be back to normal.

Well… not exactly. I plan to get a new gaming chair. My current one’s so damaged I’m surprised it’s still standing on its wheels.

Besides, I can’t even lean back on that chair worth a crap. A new chair would be well-welcomed.

Anyway, while my gaming chair is out in the sun, absorbing UV rays, I’m sitting on a wooden one that’s actually ill-suited for gaming.

On the other hand, the fact that my 360’s on its way back from Microsoft gives me time to go and get myself a new chair… But on a third hand, I’m saving for a laptop.

On a fourth hand… Ah crap…

Fortunately, I now have a plan in life for the next year. That’ll give me time to prepare for whatever will happen next year.

My current plans leave little room for failure, and I am an oddly lucky guy. It should be all good.

-HolyJunkie.

Hey you, out there beyond the wall, breaking bottles in the hall, can you help me?

Another day skipped… crap…

One of my pet peeves in movies these days are certain martial arts films, which made me think “maybe there’s a lot more like them.”

That pet peeve is the fact that in most, if not all martial arts movies- with exceptions, of course- always seem to drop the story, go “bugger-all” and end up with the crappiest ending I’ve ever seen in a movie.

The ending in most modern disappointments are worse, I admit, but if you want stuff that would be borderline that level of “WTF???” then you need to look no further than most martial arts movies today or yesterday.

Said exceptions include Ip Man, (the top dog) The Forbidden Kingdom, Shao Lin Temple Strikes Back, (old movie) Kung Fu Panda (Although I personally wouldn’t really want to consider it a full-fledged martial arts film, despite the accuracy it’s had with real martial arts) among others.

Yesterday, I went to a barbeque with the rest of the Kung Fu guys, and there we trained… well, they did.

I was feeling like shit due to dust mite allergens reacting on my skin. I used the sunshine and fresh air as an escape from that crap.

Not to mention that one of the guys in my class is a cook, and he does one hell of a job at cooking. I wish I had more of his steak now. I was feeling like crap, and thus most things could fill me up really easily. Only had half a steak. It was so good and so filling. Salads, steak, cheese, cranberry juice, and tasty treats. It was bloody awesome.

Also, I got taken down by my brother… twice… and then got attacked by kids… twice… All because we were playing tackle football and I was being a sore loser.

I took the beating, and it didn’t hurt. Kung fu for the win.

Best of all, I still won after that.

… Yeah, I’m not a kid person.

Anyway, I’m going to be going to the lake to work on my room, and check out the poured floor.

First, breakfast.

-HolyJunkie.

Hey you, standing in the road, always doing what you’re told, Can you help me?

Bug bites, and I don’t exactly have an idea on how I got them. I mean, I’ve been staying indoors for the most part.

Maybe there’s a breach in the house? I wouldn’t be surprised, to be honest. This place is older than my grandparents. Maybe older than this province. Over a hundred years old.

This place could be considered an antique. It’s habitable, at least. After all, it could be worse.

It could be one of those crappy apartment buildings that were build with thin-as-hell drywall, and only meant to last about five years, and made by the lowest bidder.

I mean… Over a hundred years, and it’s still habitable? Sure it’s not luxury, but it’s shelter. It doesn’t have any leaking roofs, it’s got half-good insulation. The walls have been standing as far as I remember.

Whatever happened to houses built this well?

I’m guessing it made way for cheap, fast housing to try to “cure” our homeless population problem. The oil industry is a little like the stock market. Pool too much resources into it, and suddenly a few months later, your well runs dry with nothing to back up on.

Worst of all, we’ve gotten water problems. By that, I mean a distinct lack of water. Canada’s water system is a cycle that relies entirely on itself. We take water out of it, it’s not coming back.

If we started selling water through NAFTA, by agreements, we are not allowed to stop. Next thing you know, Alberta, Saskatchewan, our primary farming provinces, will just start drying up, and we’ll get an enormous desert problem.

And then we try to restore it by taking ice water from the north pole, but that’s just pulling water out of the north pole, and that’s going to cause environmental problems like you wouldn’t believe.

Here’s my advice to Americans, and just about everyone in general.

Ration what you’ve got, put effort into getting nature back on course, let things get back to normal, and THEN you can continue your obtaining of resources- except at a greater regulation.

As for me, I’ll be stockpiling water bottles in the storage room at Bunker V. If I need water, I know where to go.

Just learned that there was something wrong with my bed itself, which is where I’ve been getting the bites. When I think about it, I’m betting that they’re dust mites just fucking with me.

Happened last summer when I got Swimmer’s Itch- which was basically mites living in duck shit.

And to be honest, it looks more disgusting than it sounds, I’m not kidding.

Anyway, I’m getting my bed stuff cleaned out.

It’s rather difficult to try to prevent. For one, I’m in a relatively small bunkbed. For two, it’s tough as hell to get the bedsheets on the bed without leaving room for the bedsheets to get yanked off by accident. For three, it’s difficult to get on in general. I’m on a bunkbed that’s difficult to reach across.

And the worms ate into his brain…

If you were developing a game, and you wanted serious hype over it, all you really needed to do was hire Peter Molyneux.

Of course, since Fable 2, and Project Natal, that kind of thing is one of the things you would rather not end up trying to use, as it would imply that you’re desperate to sell your game.

But on the other hand again, who isn’t?

I can understand that, you want to make money, but consider money a side objective, or a bonus if you will. Start by making a game that YOU want to play, and then publish it with nary a worry for anything.

If you get bloody rich, good for you. If you don’t, at least you’ve got a game you want to play.

Although I bet that’s what Peter Molyneux thinks as well… and just about every other game developer.

Speaking of which, considering what I just said, I’m wondering if Ubisoft enjoys dying incredibly easily, and being forced to make headshots, under the reasoning that every other kind of shot does jack-shit.

I think I already talked about this before…

I’m bored… very bored… so I’m trying my hand at writing, based on my experience with this blog, and also on what Jakob’s taught me. Hopefully it’ll result in something half-decent.

I’ve got little to talk about.

-HolyJunkie.

No matter how he tried, he could not break free…

August seems to be an off-month for me, considering my sporadic way of making posts, missing days at a time, it sucks.

Must have something to talk about…

I went to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday, and witnessed the aftermath of three coolers the day after. No hangover, just still on a sugar-high. Still weirded-out, as others would say.

I stayed home as usual, cleaned up the place. Next day, I played Diablo 2, mainly trying out the Assassin Class.

I rather like the Assassin… and it’s got nothing to do with the boobs. That’s what the Amazon’s for.

Skipped two days worth of posts… Kinda sucks.

Anyway, I’m on vacation from work, due to the fact that my boss is on vacation as well, and I’m trying a new flash game called “Toss the Turtle”

It’s one of those games where you use everything at your disposal to get the highest distance possible. I’m already in one of the higher scores… I think… Not sure… I don’t really care, actually.

… Where the hell is my uniform?

-HolyJunkie.