I’ve recently run into random forum threads about Twilight and its mixed reception. Hearing about rabid fangirls on one side and people facepalming on the other, I decided to look up some reviews, blog posts, quotes, and plot synopses to see what was up.

Bad idea.

That was spread out over the past two days. Today, I went with some friends to watch 2012.

Really bad idea.

In such a short time, I’ve been exposed to so much raw, dense and potent idiocy that I think I’ve taken years off my life. I feel a strong urge to study.

As a final project for one of my courses, I wrote a guide that explains basic patterns and strategies for danmaku shooters. I picked the subject because I’ve been meaning to put together something like this for a while now, and also because I know a few people online who would be interested in reading something like this. I’ve repackaged a copy of it to be put up here. It’s in PDF format.

Link is here.

It didn’t come out as well as I would’ve liked, but hopefully some people will still find it helpful.

The last boss in Mushihimesama Ultra mode (not surprisingly) ridiculous. On top of the patterns themselves, this boss has a shield that not only renders him/her/it immune to bombs, but also fires a huge and fast spread of additional bullets at you if you shoot the boss while this shield is up. And this shield goes up every time you bomb or die, and stays up long enough for whatever bullet pattern is in play to re-fill the screen before fading. So not only are your bombs reduced to minimally effective bullet removal devices, but you also have to stop shooting every time you die or bomb, and keep a loose eye on the top of the screen to know when to start shooting again. And I haven’t found a “slow” button in this game yet so I have to no-focus everything while I wait.

I’ve played shooters for years on and off, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of how to handle most given patterns that aren’t entirely memory-based. Even if something is exceedingly difficult, I at least have an idea of what to do in it – it’s more a matter of execution than understanding. But any trick this last pattern has only seems to last half a second at best. After that, I think you just have to think faster, react faster, and at a much more minute level than anything I’ve done before.

Forcing my brain to come up with a way to navigate it feels like trying to run Crysis on a 486.

This is a screenshot from a mahjong game that I played this morning.

My luck had been approaching movie-levels of terrible, with me repeatedly throwing tiles only to draw back the same one or the tile next to it. My hands were progressing like molasses. People were winning often before I was even close to tenpai, and those wins were usually on innocent-looking tiles that I discarded.

This screenshot is from last game of that match. Note that there were only a handful of tiles left to draw. One person had declared riichi, so at least one person was in tenpai. A quick glance at the pool showed that three green dragon tiles (“fat choi” to the Chinese) had already been discarded. My hand wasn’t going to go anywhere in the time remaining, and my green dragon was a nearly 100% safe tile to throw out, so I went ahead and did so (It’s the newest tile in my pool. Note that it hasn’t lined up yet.)

(On closer inspection, it turns out only two green dragons had been thrown out. I was already in a pretty bummed mood so I must’ve mistaken a 1 sou somewhere as a green dragon. Anyway, that still made it a somewhat safe tile to throw, since the only way anyone would have needed it was if they were doing a hell wait on a pair.).

Now, since this is a replay, let’s see what the guy next to me had.

Wonderful.

Crysis
Incredible graphics combined with the cheesiest, most craptacular writing I’ve ever seen in a game. Started out rather underwhelming but turned out pretty decent. Kinda funny, since apparently most other people seemed to like the first half more than the second. CoD4 apparently spoiled me – it really bugged me how you could shoot someone in the chest repeatedly without killing him, until I figured they were probably wearing bulletproof vests or something (you could also shoot the helmets clean off of soldiers without killing them). Last boss fight crashed on me twice for no good reason.

There’s also some silly fun to be had throwing heavy objects through fully destructable houses.

Crysis Warhead
The first game done right. Everything seems to have been improved in this game; writing, gameplay, pacing, level design, etc. The game even runs better without sacrificing visual quality, so I assume they’ve optimized the code. The aiming issue was still there, but it was quickly solved with a newfound respect for shotguns and Gauss rifles.

TH12 demo
Pretty impressive. Typical of what you’d expect of newer Touhou games these days – good music, improved look, somewhat quirky new system, and early levels that are considerably harder than their counterparts in TH6/7/8.

I particularly like the UFO mechanic. The UFOs encourage you to break rank from standard bullet streaming to chase after them, whereas in SA the autocollection on graze made the game feel like it locked you down into the same movement patterns. In other words, the UFOs make the gameplay feel less confined, and the design of the bullet patterns reflect that.

I like how the playable Sanae handles, and finally, this is very true.

Clannad After Story
Finally got around to watching this. I didn’t like it as much as the first season. While the first few story arcs that covered some of the optional side arcs in the original game were good, the later arc that focused on Tomoya felt too bleak to me. I’m sure that was intentional, but I feel that I simply wasn’t in the right mindset to appreciate it.

That’s actually something that I feel is very common with Key’s work. Their style is very distinct, and requires a certain mindset and mood to be enjoyed properly.

FRAPS
What the hell.

1) System SATA drive is too busy with other tasks to record properly, and separate physical IDE hard drive is too slow to create a new video file after the 4 gig file limit is reached.
2) Get new, faster SATA drive. Ghosted system drive onto new drive, and rearranged things so that the new drive is now the system drive. Old SATA is cleared and used for extended storage.
3) FRAPS doesn’t like recording to the separate physical SATA drive. It randomly freezes for extended periods of time, and then when the game finally starts running again, the recording had stopped on its own.
4) I finally try recording to the physical IDE drive again for the heck of it (which has had no changes aside from being moved to a new physical drive mount). It works perfectly – it even creates those new video files without a hitch.

Anyway it somehow works now, and I’ve uploaded some gaming related silliness on my Youtube.

L4D Custom Maps
The influx of custom maps has been great. All of the ones I’ve played so far have been pretty awesome. They’re not perfect, but their overall quality has been very impressive.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=370505

Long story short:
- Guy gets kicked out of his house, has no place to go to, and no money. Is jobless, is finishing school in a matter of months, and is about to wind up homeless.
- Guy laments about this on forums.
- Forumgoers gather over a grand in donations and one of them lets him room with him.

It’s nice to know the Internet isn’t always about being an ass.

I think acknowledging of one’s own limits is just as important as a desire to constantly test and extend them. Being hard on yourself is all well and good as a way to help you improve, but there’s no point if the pressure backfires and destroys your will to keep trying in the first place. There’s no point in getting all depressed over a small failure in the process of improving yourself, because letting it get to you inadvertently writes off all the successful accomplishments that brought you to that point in the first place. There’s no shame in saying that you can’t do something, because everything that you commit yourself to produces a load that you have to carry, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional, and sometimes you simply cannot take on anything more at that point in time. And yet all of these reactions not at all uncommon – they are perfectly natural because we are all human.

In order to improve yourself and extend your limits, you have to first understand and acknowledge the limits that are inherent to you. All improvement takes time, and everyone makes mistakes. Just acknowledge that these two things are simply part of the process and keep going.

I’m part of -⑨- on Steam, which is a clan where everyone chooses a Touhou character and makes a name in relation to that character. A bunch of people I hang out with on IRC are in this clan, so I joined, and it’s been pretty awesome so far.

I went with Sanae, and eventually settled on the name Only Human. Story-wise, Sanae is a character that was vaunted for having god-like powers in the “real” world, but quickly found out that was pretty average in Gensokyo, after being beaten through the floor in Mountain of Faith by resident crazy people Reimu and Marisa.

I like that name not only because it suits Sanae, but also because I think it’s useful as a reminder to myself. One of the reasons why I like Sanae as a character is because I feel I identify with her. Obviously it’s not on the same magnitude, but I’ve repeatedly been in similar situations throughout my life. Time and time again, I would find something I was talented at and quickly outstrip everyone around me, only to later step onto a larger stage and quickly realize that my skill level is actually downright pedestrian. Being humbled like this over and over again was pretty grueling, but I think the experience eventually forged a few very valuable personality traits that I doubt I would have gotten in any other way.

The Evo 2k9 SF4 finals were bloody awesome. I don’t think anyone could have asked for a more epic showdown. Actually, the whole thing was awesome. Being more or less totally new to the competitive fighting game scene, I was surprised at how intense it all was. Great stuff – makes me wish I had a knack for these games.

Anyway, after everyone was done screaming about it on IRC, setrajonas on IRC linked this song as a closer. I really liked it so I figured I might as well post it here.

PS: Congrats to HeartNana for beating the snot out of everyone in BlazBlue before I finished a round of mahjong in the other window. I wanted to see more of the game, but by the time I looked again, everything was pretty much over.

So Hourai linked me this, and this is the result. The top bit is solid enough, but it makes less and less sense as the list goes on. I think it’s partly because I’m clicking through these choices at 4 am.

I’ve been meaning to write out a lot of various thoughts here, but this would be a bad time to do it. Another day, maybe.