The Day of iBrickage
So here’s the thing: I’m not complaining. I’m really not. I’m just anxious.
This morning I packed up my laptop to bring it to work with me for the sole purpose of updating my iPhone to sweet, sweet 2.0. Already have my coveted apps downloaded and ready to roll and as usual for me when it comes to gadgets and boy toys, I simply couldn’t stand to wait another minute.
In the office, I checked around the web to see what was going on in the land of 2.0 updates. It didn’t look good. The news all over was bad and people far and wide proclaimed the arrival, at last, of the iPocalypse.
Obviously, I had to see for myself.
Big mistake on my part. I trekked into this foreign land of firmware updatage at approximately 10:47am and still, as of 2:54pm, I am utterly and completely phoneless.
In other words, I fucked up.
Thankfully, the Twitterverse has been there to bolster my spirits with stories of success. As I sit here refreshing iTunes in an attempt to resucitate my poor, maligned iPhone, I can only long for that moment where I too shall proclaim victory.
In 140 characters or less.
Update: Okay, my new solution to every problem is to blog about it. Apparently, the moment you do that, things get done. Like my iPhone finally gets updated. Re-syncing all my content as we speak, looks like success has been met!
Tagged: big mistake, gadgets, iBrickage, iPhone, iPocalypse, iTunes, The Day The Servers Died, twitter
Add Tumblr Comments to Liquid Typo Theme
Some of you may have noticed a link to my tumblelog over in the sidebar here. Whether or not you’ve clicked through to it, I suggest checking it out.
Of course, you’re probably asking yourself, “What’s a tumblelog?” Well, I’ll let Wikipedia take this one away:
A tumblelog (or tlog or tumblog) is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging.
There’s an absolutely incredible tumblelog service called Tumblr that really lets you dig right into running and maintaining a tumblelog. It’s free and very customizable and extremely easy to post to. Anyone intimidated by the idea of running a blog should at the very least look into setting something up on Tumblr. It’s very basic and, given the simplicity with which you can post, very ideal for stream of consciousness style blogging. See a cool video and want to share it? You can do that in seconds and without dealing with a lot of goofy code if that’s not your thing.
I’ve actually been flirting with the idea of being done with Wordpress altogether. I don’t really like playing with code all that much, and as easy as it is to use Wordpress, it still needs a little more hand holding than I sometimes want to give it. Tumblr has struck me as the ideal platform to switch over to with one exception: There is no built in comment system, which is a total dealbreaker.
I was quite happy to discover that the comment community site Disqus has instructions on integrating with Tumblr. I tried some time ago to integrate Disqus into this site, but gave up after I hit a few kinks here and there. I figured I’d try it out with Tumblr instead this time around, and I’m pretty pleased with the results. If you click over you’ll see a comment count link in the right sidebar.
The thing is, this didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Your mileage may vary quite a bit based on which Tumblr theme you’re using, but I figured I’d share my experiences integrating Disqus into my chosen theme, Liquid Typo.
According to Disqus’s intallation instructions, you’ve got two snippets of code: One that creates the comment count link and one that creates the actual comment box you write into. These need to get placed in very specific locations, but the provided instructions don’t really work for every theme. The idea is that the comment count link goes before the </div> {/block:Posts} part of the HTML and the comment box code goes after. I tried these instructions as written on the Liquid Typo theme and it kind of came out a mess.
After playing around with it a bit, I figured out the best way to code this is to use the comment count link code within the div for each “block” type. You see, Tumblr has various types of content that it will format accordingly depending on how you want your content to appear. What this means it that when you post a photo, the site will reflect that an optimize the layout of that photo for ideal presentation. Same thing if you’re sharing a quote or a video clip or whatever. In the Liquid Typo theme, each “block” has a separate div for a sidebar on the right hand side with meta information about the post. I figured this was an ideal location for the comment counts. All I had to do at this point was sort out the precise location to stick the Disqus code, which ended up looking like this (using the photo block as an example):
{block:Photo}
<div class=”photo”>
<span class=”noborder”>{LinkOpenTag}<img src=”{PhotoURL-400}”
alt=”{PhotoAlt}”/>{LinkCloseTag}</span>
{block:Caption}
<p>{Caption}</p>
{/block:Caption}
<div class=”rightsidebar”>
{block:NewDayDate}<h4>{ShortMonth} {DayOfMonth} {Year}</h4>{/block:NewDayDate}
{block:SameDayDate}<h4>{24HourWithZero}:{Minutes}</h4>{/block:SameDayDate}
<p><a href=”{Permalink}”>Photo</a></p>
<div style=”font-size: 10px; text-align: left;”><a href=”{Permalink}#disqus_thread”>Comments (View)</a></div>
</div>
</div>
{/block:Photo}
The bolded code is what I added from Disqus. Inserted here, the comment count link will appear below the permalink for the type of content it is (”Photo” in this case). Just repeat for each post type block (”Regular,” “Photo,” “Quote,” “Link,” “Conversation,” “Audio,” and “Video”).
All that remains is to add the second, longer code snippet from Disqus. Happily, there’s no extra tweaking needed here. Just copy and paste the code right where it suggests, after {/block:Posts}. Should work like a charm!
Tagged: code, comments, Disqus, hacks, tlog, tumblelog, tumblog, Tumblr, tutorial
WIMP Diary #2
Blame Grand Theft Auto IV for my tardiness.
I dodged lightening. I raced chocobos. I collected butterflies.1 I played blitzball. I did all of this not because it was fun (it really wasn’t), but because I felt compelled to do these things in order to acquire rare and powerful weapons for my characters. In the course of doing these things I read over Mitch Krpata’s New Taxonomy of Gamers
and had to come to the conclusion that I am unabashedly a completist. From Krpata’s blog:
A Completist may be less interested in maximizing his ability to play a game, and more interested in making sure he doesn’t miss anything.
The question here then is at what point does collecting every possible object stop being the objective? I’m really not kidding when I saw that the above activities were not fun, because most of them were not. If anything, they were simply exercises in how far I could let a game push my buttons without completely losing my shit. This is no way for a grown man to spend his time, one may argue, and yet this is how I chose to spend a fairly significant amount of time. I finally achieved the majority of what I set out to do, but I’m still left with the question of whether or not it was really worth it. What do I have to show for it? A bad ass sword in a video game? No, that’s not it. I’m not certain what it is, but there is at least one good thing to come from it: I did something in a game better than my brother. He never dodged enough lightening, never finished the chocobo race. (I have no idea if he collected the butterflies or not, so he’s more than welcome to comment below to clarify this point, assuming of course that he reads this.)
Welcome to Shibuya. If you’ve seen Lost in Translation, you know the place, even if you’ve never heard the name. Think of it as Tokyo’s version of Times Square, only busier. TWEWY starts off with Neku waking up in a state of confusion, devoid of memory and completely uncertain as to why he is in Shibuya. He realizes that a black pin he is carrying allows him to read people’s minds. A cell phone that he doesn’t recognize rings in his pocket. The text message:
Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. -The Reapers
He can’t erase the message and things get weirder still when he notices that he now has a timer imprinted on his palm that begins to count down immediately.
As far as introductory sequences in video games go, this is a fucking masterpiece. I can’t think of the last time I’ve felt so excited just from the set up to a story. From here, TWEWY introduces new characters, starts explaining in oblique terms who the Reapers are2 and launches into the obligatory series of tutorial missions. For the most part, these kinds of missions are a necessary evil in any sort of game whose interface expands beyond any sort of common complexity level. What is quickly realized is that TWEWY’s interface is extremely complex, and yet remarkably easy to acquire a taste for. The most unique aspect of these controls come about during combat, where the player is intended to utilize both screens on the Nintendo DS. The top screen shows your companion in combat, while the bottom is Neku. The top screen controls with the face buttons, the bottom screen with the touch screen. In the interest of not overexplaining this particular control scheme, it essentially amounts to the video game equivalent of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same. It’s a little terrifying to adjust to, but I’m getting there.
TWEWY is broken down into days. The Reapers’ game is meant to be seven days, though I suspect there will be twists, as I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game and yet I am on day four. You collect pins, which enable your various combat powers. These are activated using various touch screen gestures and for the most part seem to work extremely well. As you engage in combat, you collect PP, which is used to upgrade your pins. My favorite feature of the game so far is a special ability that gets unlocked at one point which allows you to gain PP for not playing the game. Let me repeat that: TWEWY is a game that actually rewards you for shutting it off and not playing for awhile. When you return to the game, your pins are powered up in proportion to the amount of time you didn’t play. What’s further remarkable about this ability is that it serves as a fascinating counterpoint to a major theme in the game, which is that of isolation and loneliness. Neku’s a disaffected youth and this is made visually apparent by the massive headphones he wears at all times.
There will no doubt be much more to share about TWEWY as the days go by. Anyone reading this who has a DS (or is looking for an excuse to pick one up) would be borderline moronic to not jump into TWEWY’s representation of Shibuya.
This is the big one. Frankly, I’m not sure even where to begin. Contrary to the plethora of reviews that have turned up in every publication with even a remote interest in video games, I just don’t see how any review can really get this game right. They all seem to stick a big fat perfect score on it, share some stories they experienced, and call it a day. That makes for pretty shoddy reviewing. To be honest, the only one to get this right is Penny Arcade. As Tycho succinctly puts it:
I’m honestly not certain how you’re supposed to review it: I guess you just decide what portion of the experience you’re going to address.
It is in that spirit that I will focus on the parts of the experience I’m actually underwhelmed by:
- Why is there a car wash? For that matter, why are there multiple car washes? One mission requires the use of a car wash, wherein you drive your grand theft auto-ed vehicle up to the self-service machine, pay your fee, and enter the car wash. Your car is washed while you sit there and listen to the radio and then the wash is over and you exit the car wash. There’s nothing interactive, the visuals aren’t interesting, and it’s time consuming to sit through the experience so you just skip it anyway. Outside of this one mission, there is no discernable reward for driving around in a clean car. In an effort to explore new venues for dating, I took one of the ladies I’ve been seeing there. The only reward for this experience was a lot of uncomfortable silence. I’ve not taken her back out yet, in fear that she may reject me.3
- For all the talk of how dense Liberty City would be to make up for the lack of total space as compared to San Andreas, I’m pretty disappointed in the actual execution of this density. I had taken “density” to mean that there would be lots of interiors to explore, options galore. This, alas, is not the case. From what I can tell, there are very few residential interiors outside of your safehouses and those locations intrinsic to a particular mission. As for businesses? By my count, there are four clothing stores and maybe six or seven dining establishments. I’m sorry, but that’s kind of lame. The game just kind of reeks of wasted space. I realize this is a lot of nitpicking, but someone’s got to bring this game down from the stratospheric heights everyone else is placing it!
- I’ve always hated how GTA limits their locations from the outset. Basically, you start off in one area, but can’t access another until you reach a certain point in the story. The only GTA game this made any kind of sense in was San Andreas, if only because those limitations involved entire cities and not just neighborhoods within one city.4 Since GTA IV is set in a photocopy of New York City, it just seems ridiculous to say, “Hey, you can stay in Brooklyn, but if you try to go to the Bronx or Manhattan, we’ll arrest your ass.”5 The game tries to explain this somewhat from the outset when your cousin informs you that the bridges are closed due to terrorist threat. It’s still a little silly, but at least they give context. Problem is, it takes multiple in-game days to get to the point where the bridges start opening up. Can anyone imagine what kind of chaos would ensue if all the bridges in NYC were closed for a week? It’s a nit, sure, but it’s still worth picking. I still can’t go to Jersey, but maybe that’s a blessing.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can assure you that the rest is tremendous. Unspeakably tremendous. I can’t even imagine where to begin, but the whole impression is outstanding. It has to be, especially when you consider that in the nine days the game has been in my possession, I have spent about 30%6 of my non-working, non-sleeping time in Liberty City. I suppose I should not celebrate this, but alas, it is the truth. It is also possibly why I am not a very good friend and for that, I apologize.
Next: Expect more GTA IV and more TWEWY. And probably not much else. Sorry.
- Note: These links lead to fairly long YouTube videos that will likely bore anyone unfamiliar with the game, but do serve as an excellent introduction into just how frustrating these experiences were. [↩]
- Or at least who they might be. At this point, the only certainty is that nothing is certain. [↩]
- It is entirely possible that this is in fact incredible advice for the socially retarded: Always get your car washed before the date, not during. [↩]
- I may be oversimplifying this on account of not having played San Andreas in awhile. They may have also limited neighborhoods within cities, but I’m not entirely sure. [↩]
- By arrest I mean kill you with overwhelming force. [↩]
- I came to this number through a very complicated series of quadratic equations that are a personal trade secret. This is, of course, completely untrue. [↩]
Tagged: butterflies, chocobo race, DS, final fantasy x, grand theft auto, grand theft auto iv, Mitch Krpata, Nintendo, penny arcade, PS2, Reapers, Shibuya, taxonomy, Times Square, TWEWY, video games, WIMP, xbox 360
WIMP Diary #1
So it begins.
As promised, what follows is a running diary of the games that I’ve ingested over the past week.
Final Fantasy X (PS2)
Past experience has proven one thing: Regardless of my adoration for the Final Fantasy series, I never seem to bother getting around to play them as they come out. This in spite of the general sense of excitement I feel about the impending release of any new game in the primary Final Fantasy series (as opposed to the many spin off series, one of which shall be discussed below). Final Fantasy X is possibly the only exception to the highly anticipated release theory in that I really couldn’t have cared less when it was released. This is not a reflection of my sentiments towards Final Fantasy in general, but rather a side effect of the particular moment in my personal history when the game descended upon an anticipatory public. Which is to say that in 2001 I was just not as into video games as I (a) had been and (b) would become again.
Having invested just over 40 hours into the game in the span of about two weeks, my little band of merry and mysterious people have been through a lot. The basic story is typically epic, but incredibly familiar: A diverse and motley crew of warriors, magicians and athletes are brought together by extreme circumstances and must travel a great distance to save the world. With the exception of the part about athletes, you’ve seen this story a dozen times, which is not to say it is not very well told here. I could probably fill pages discussing the game in greater detail, but I’ll pass. I will say this: Whereas Final Fantasy VIII introduced a phenomenal mini-game in the form of card battling (in the vein of something like Magic: The Gathering) and Final Fantasy IX refined (and somewhat ruined, imho) the same game, FFX introduces Blitzball, which is what you might get if you took a half-staffed rugby team, gave them a beach ball and drowned them underwater. Lest you did not take in the negativity in that sentence, I’ll spell it out for you: I do not like Blitzball. At all. Sadly, there are rewards to achievement in this craptacular mini-game that carry over to the main game in significant ways, so I suspect I have not trudged my way through my last game of BB.
MLB ‘08 (PS3)
Jumping right into Franchise mode with my Mets, I played through a couple of spring training games to get a feel for the game before launching into my own personal 2008 season. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve played a baseball game, but the demo impressed me enough a few months ago to give this one a shot. I tend to buy sports games and play them only a couple of times before they take up permanent residence on my shelf. So far, MLB ‘08 has me coming back thanks to the fact that it is simply fun to play. Pitching tends to be my least favorite part of any baseball game, but the golf swing meter style used here is really finely tweaked and totally functional. It serves as a remarkable representation of each pitcher’s actual style of delivery. For example, someone with a short wind up leaves you with less time to react on the downward swing of the pitching arc, a situation further exasperated by the presence of a runner on first you’ve got to keep honest with an even shorter delivery.
I’m not nearly as in love with the hitting game. This probably boils down to personal ability, but whatever touch I once had in video game batting is completely gone. Maybe this is indicative of the developers doing their best to emulate the experience of actually batting in the major leagues, but it does get frustrating when you’re basically just guessing if a pitch is gonna nick the corner for a called third strike or not. I recognize that’s part of the game, and I’m not sure I have a tremendous solution, but sometimes it just feels frustrating. Perhaps this will improve as I play more.
After getting shut out on opening day by the Marlins, I held a 3 to 2 lead over them in the second game right up to the 8th inning, when they tied the score only to come back in the bottom of the 9th to crush a one out home run over the left field fence. Here’s hoping things improve. One thing to note: The way in which my Mets positively crumpled in the later innings was pretty much a pitch perfect simulation of how the real Mets seem to always find a way to do the same thing. Fuckers.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Rings of Fate (DS)
Numerous sources compared FFCC to a Diablo-style (or more accurately, “roguelike“) loot snatching fiesta, which piqued my interest considerably. Those comparison are accurate and the acquisition of loot is plentiful, though it is hampered by the fact that despite the fact you’re constantly picking up items, you can’t actually use them right away. Basically, as you kill enemies and slash open treasure chests (does nobody simply lift the lid anymore?) you grab up “materials” and “scrolls,” along with other various items. The way the materials and scrolls work is this: Once you’ve collected a particular scroll, which has a generic descriptor of some kind (”Rugged Clothes”; “Steel Weapon”), you go to a workshop and submit the scroll along with the materials required by the scroll, pay a fee, and receive in return a weapon or armor that generically fits the description of the original scroll. The results seem to have an element of randomness to them, which is nice, but it doesn’t really replace the satisfaction of striking down some monster in the middle of a dungeon and being rewarded with an epic and powerful sword in return and for immediate use.
Jeanne D’Arc (PSP)
I’ve been playing this one on and off for the past couple of months. Tactical RPGs are far from my favorite type of game, but this one is pretty good. I remain impressed with the decision to retell the story of the Maid of Orléans in a fantasy setting. I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of the story thus far, but at the very least, they seem to have the correct locations important to the story of Jeanne.
Nonetheless, a great story can’t save a poor game, which is a completely moot point in this case. My favorite contribution here is the “burning aura”: When you attack an enemy unit, the grid square on the other side of your opponent becomes engulfed in flames. If you can get there quick enough, one of your other units will gain a significant boost in attacking power if they do so from within the burning aura. This lends a really deep element to the strategy, as you’re forced to consider your progress within each stage more carefully to take advantage of this strategic element as much as possible. Along the same lines, when attacked, if your friendly units sit on adjacent squares, they respond with a “unified defense,” greatly hampering the enemy’s ability to harm you. This focus on teamwork is a brilliant game play realization of the story, which bands Jeanne with a wide variety of characters she meets along her journey who have the same goal, which is, of course, to drive the English out of France.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
I’ve had this one on the shelf for a month or so now. Sequentially, PO fits into the Metal Gear Solid canon as a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (which I have not played) and as a predecessor to the original PS1 Metal Gear Solid title (which I have played, though it was years ago).
Just starting out, I’ve barely nicked the in game tutorials that make up the first levels. I’ve only just reached the point where I’m starting to grasp the general concept of Portable Ops, which is to recruit local militia and whatnot to create a virtual army of individuals who carry out a variety of tasks. Reading elsewhere, I come to understand that these soldiers are recruited via random WiFi access points, which will ideally lend some excitement and mystery to the proceedings. The concept of using real world randomness (or at least the appearance of such) as a tool for each player to tweak their experience is one that fascinates me. It’s not something that is often explored in console games. One example of such a thing that sticks out is Monster Rancher, back on the Playstation 1, which let you “breed” new monsters by inserting any readable CD.
My early experience actually playing Portable Ops is somewhat similar to how I felt about Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, which is that the lack of a second analog controller really forces a bit of a learning curve in terms of how you control the game. There are a variety of controller mappings you can choose from, but nothing feels quite right yet, and the camera doesn’t do a terribly great job of making up for the player’s inefficiency at moving the view point. The game does seem to take this into account by being a little more forgiving in terms of how observant the enemies you’re trying to sneak around are, which is to say they aren’t.
Tetris DS
The search for this game in stores led Patrick Klepek over at MTV’s Multiplayer blog to conduct a great series of interviews with game publishers about how they choose to manufacture particular games and why they choose to stop. Since I already own a copy, I figured I’d give it another play. It’s Tetris, so there’s not much to be said that you’re not already familiar with. That said, I continue to feel slightly disappointed with the Nintendo themed Tetris offering here, where each game type takes place in a Nintendo world. For example, the standard style of Tetris play (drop your pieces, make your lines, until you can’t do it anymore) exists in a Super Mario Brothers themed world, the bouncy theme music playing while a Mario you don’t control hops around on the upper DS screen. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I miss the classic Tetris theme music.
Next week I anticipate discussing the conclusion of Final Fantasy X just as The World Ends With You. Possibly more Jeanne D’Arc, possibly more Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. A newly released add on pack to Super Stardust HD (PS3) looks promising and the beta begins for Metal Gear Solid Online. The overall theme for next week, however, is to avoid starting anything I can’t put down in anticipation of arguably one of the premiere media releases of 2008: Grand Theft Auto IV.
Tagged: blitzball, Crystal Chronicles, DS, final fantasy x, Jeanne D'Arc, Metal Gear Solid, MLB, multiplayer, PS2, PS3, PSP, running diary, video games
What I’ve Been Playing
I figure the best way to utilize this lovely little corner of the internet I’ve set up for myself is to just jump right in and do it. Yeah, yeah, I say that all the time, and one of these days it’ll stick. The key point here is that I’d like to try my best to avoid doing exactly what I’m doing right here at the introduction, which is to avoid blogging about not blogging. This is a boring topic, I fully realize this.
My efforts to rectify this situation are as follows: As you may recall from this previous post, my brother Michael and I are embroiled in a year long battle to play (and finish) as many video games as possible during the course of this two thousand and eighth calendar year (counting, naturally, from the biblical year zero, which is not to be confused with the Khmer Rouge’s ultimately failed attempts at, ahem, “starting over“). We have been embroiled in said battle ever since. Without resorting to the sports page model of team standings (hint: I’m losing), I will simply offer this brand new, uh, feature? Column? I’m not sure. Call it what you will.
I’ll call it WIMP. Yep. WIMP. That stands for “What I’m Playing.” I fully realize that, technically, “What I’m Playing” actually shortens to WIP, though if you expand the contraction within you end up with WIAP. Neither of these really resound with me. They’re awkward to pronounce or their pronunciations don’t particularly imply the actual shortening. Besides, I want an acronym, not an initialism. I’m stubborn like that. So, with WIMP you’ll get to read just what the hell I’ve been doing with those controllers in my hands you might see me with constantly. Hopefully in sharing the specific titles of games I’ve been playing, a little bit of interesting analysis, thoughts on design, etc. will ooze out from the pores of my rambling. Or one would hope.
Given that I clearly lack the discipline at this time to promise something as regular as a daily post, I’ll stick to something slightly more manageable. We’ll go with something weekly. Not sure which day of the week. I could probably go ahead and start now but let’s be honest here for a second: I’ve rambled on in this post long enough, yet another one of my meta-posts about posting.
Hope you’ll swing back by for a little video game talk, kiddos!
Tagged: acronym, brotherly competition, initialism, khmer rouge, me, video games, WIMP, year zero