Rolling Out the Ratings

Update: New rating system in video game reviews, plus review of Ys Book I & II.

I resisted giving games absolute ratings in my reviews for a long time. Apart from ratings being entirely subjective, a game is more than the sum of its parts; a game that is seemingly inferior in one or more aspects can sometimes be just as entertaining as a game with a higher overall rating, if not more so. Still, ratings are sort of fun, and can be some kind of indication about the game's overall quality, so I finally gave in, and added a rating system to the video game review section.

The new rating system is quite simple: Games are given simple verbal evaluations on five main areas: general opinion, story, graphics, sound and gameplay. (These have been there since the beginning of the review section.) Now, based on these evaluations, each area is given a rating of no star, half a star or full star. These stars are added up for a total rating of 0-5 stars. (Although, since I don't really review games I don't like, it's rare to see ratings below three stars.)

I've now added ratings to all the existing reviews, although I may still do a little tweaking. Additionally, I recently played the TurboGrafx-16 game Ys Book I & II, a rather enjoyable oldschool action RPG title, and the review is now online.

Web Shows

I've been very quiet lately, haven't I? Well, nothing grand to blog about. Just same old boring existence. I'll leave out my epiphanies concerning traditional magical weapons and formulas, which aren't likely to interest anyone, and get on to proper weblog matter.

I've discovered some fun web shows of late, namely The Guild and The Legend of Neil. Both are hilarious, mainly targeted to gamers, and feature the amazing Felicia Day (who I've totally got a crush on). I've watched the earlier episodes of both shows during the last week or two, and can't wait for new episodes! And that's about all I have to say this time.

Dreams from the Fresh Kills

Update: First session of new RPG campaign.

After a few months, I finally got around to starting my new RPG, titled Dreams from the Fresh Kills. This is a mystery story set in modern day Staten Island, New York City, aiming for a surreal atmosphere akin to David Lynch productions. This grew mostly out of a desire to try something different after running Kin of Cerberos, a much more action themed game, for a good while, and also a little from the trouble we had getting the rhythm of fights right in that game. The current game is likely to feature very little combat for the most part, focusing more on character interaction and investigation.

As with earlier games, I'll do story write-ups of each session and post them online. This is primarily for the convenience of me and my players, but anyone is of course free to read them.

Synthesis

I've just bought my first hardware synthesizer, a second hand Korg N1R from the late 90's. Obviously I don't have much experience with it yet, but it seems pretty cool. It's a rack module style synth, i.e. it doesn't have a keyboard of it's own and needs to be hooked up to a midi keyboard. (As it happens, we have an old Kawai keyboard in the house, dating from the mid-90's, with midi features, which seems to work fine for the purpose.) There are hundreds of preset sounds to explore, and lots of potential for editing sounds, if I ever get around to learning the art of synthesizer programming... Okay, it is more than ten years old, but some of the sounds are still impressive, and I'm not sure a vintage sound is often a bad thing in general, either.

Earlier I've used pure samples, with tracker software, for similar purposes, and experimented with software synthesizers (such as ZynAddSubFX), though I haven't really done much with those as of yet. (Oh, and there's that old Kawai of course. I used that on a couple of old four track recordings back in the 90's, although it's own sound is rather inferior.) It's nice to actually own a physical synth, though. I have a large selection of at least decent sounds available in one straightforward package, no need to mess around with a variety of software. And it's a name brand, of course. With my ESP guitar (albeit from their cheaper LTD line) and Korg synth I'm almost starting to feel like a real musician.

If only I was a little better at playing keyboards...

Swankified in the Summer Sun

Been a while since my last post, mostly because I've been vacationing up in Nilsiä and there hasn't been much to say. I completed my annual ritual of reading Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, then read The Return of the King (I'd started re-reading LotR a few years before, but got sidetracked somehow, as is too often the case). The weather's been much nicer than last year, but, as usual, I've done much less creative stuff than I'd like.

But onwards to the main topic: I've written before about using StumpWM. Last night I finally got around to setting it up so that it runs the Swank module, the Lisp-side component of SLIME, Emacs's Lisp editing mode. This makes it possible to connect to the running Lisp process from Emacs and edit the code interactively, while the software is running! This interactive development style is, of course, one of the main features of Lisp.

Now, whether I'll actually use this potential is another matter entirely. At the very least it'll make editing the configuration file easier (since that is just Lisp code same as the rest of the software). It was possible to load new or modified elements before using a simple StumpWM Emacs mode provided, but this was much more limited. But whether I'll have the guts or inspiration (or simply the energy) to delve into the depths of StumpWM is a whole other matter...

Doomed to Go Paddy

Doom. The most legendary of all FPS games. And even after 16 years it still manages to entertain me. In fact, it's one of the very few FPS games I've ever had any real interest in. Obviously I don't play it all year round, but I enjoy returning to it every now and then, in one form or another.

A year ago I wrote about playing the Doomsday Engine version of the game, with updated graphics and modern, Quake style mouse controls. This summer I'm trying something a little different. As you might know, earlier this year I switched from Mac OS X back to Debian GNU/Linux. I discovered the only Doom port available in Debian's package repositories was PrBoom. Worth a try, I thought, before I try my hands at compiling another port.

PrBoom takes a fairly different approach from Doomsday Engine. While there are numerous bug fixes and improvements to the engine, on the surface it looks and feels much more like the original game. Only the original sprites are used (although there are options for smoothing the graphics) and there are no modern control features like jumping or free aiming with the mouse. I briefly tried the mouse control it has, and couldn't really play with it (I'm not a 100% sure it couldn't be tweaked to behave better, though, I didn't really spend much time looking into it). While back in the 90's when I first played Doom I naturally used the keyboard controls, I found them impossible to return to after growing accustomed to the agility of mouse control.

So I decided to look into a possible third option: a game pad. The first try was disappointing. While PrBoom, like the original Doom, supports joysticks, the controls aren't really configurable, and no more agile than keyboard control. I would need something more akin to modern console FPS games: using one thumb for moving forwards and backwards, and strafing left and right, while using another thumb for aiming (turning) and a shoulder trigger for firing. (I use PlayStation controllers with a USB adapter.) I wasn't hopeful at first, but after a little digging I discovered a little application that converts joystick input into keyboard input (called joy2key). And, a little to my surprise, it worked perfectly, allowing me to freely configure my game pad controls.

And I must say, while I've always been somewhat sceptical about console FPS games, this control scheme works quite well with Doom. It's simple, fairly agile, and fun to play. I don't mind the old school graphics. Quite the contrary, in fact. Doom was an awesome game for its time and there's really no reason to mess with it any more than is necessary.

I've also been trying out some of the many mods available for the first time. I might write more about them in another post.

One More Angsty Candle Light Poem

Cool breeze tonight
The breath of angels
Grey sky at midnight
Never black, not now
Candle flame, gentle flicker

Who is that
Dancing, unseen?
She brushes against my skin, softly
Against this flame, too
Dancing to the same tune
Heart beats (heartbeats?) in silence
Just mine?

There's an angel for everyone
So they say
They walk by your side
But some nights
You just need a demon.

Guitar!

I finally got the new electric guitar today!

I ended up getting an LTD EC-1000QM. LTD of course is the lower end line manufactured by ESP Guitars, whose instruments are used by many famous rock musicians, from Ronnie Wood to Nightwish's Emppu Vuorinen. While this is the company's cheaper, mass produced line, the 1000 series guitars are at the very top of that line, with retail prices of more than 1000 euros (in Finland, at least).

Which is more than I could afford, really, so I was seriously considering the next best model, the 400 series. Enter Lady Luck! Just at this point I happened to run into a 1000 model second hand at an auction website. It was promised to be in good condition, and the seller looked reasonably reliable, so I decided I really had no choice but take the chande. I ended up paying 550 euros for it, plus delivery. Which is actually less than I would have payed for a new 400 model! The condition turned out to be as good as promised, pretty much 'good as new', I would say.

The EC series, based on ESP's higher end Eclipse model, has a Les Paul style body. This model has EMG active pickups, abalone decorations (I believe), and a beautiful dark red translucent finish. There's no tremolo, but I was already starting to lean against one, seeing as I've never used one much and needlessly complicating the mechanics is never a good idea.

Now, if I could only get around to actually using it and getting some songs recorded...

Ben B. Bainton, BA

As of yesterday I'm officially a Bachelor of Arts, graduating from the University of Helsinki, with English Philology as my major subject. Only took me nine bloody years, three times the official target time of three years. In my defense, I've already completed a fair share of the studies for the Master's degree (but I've still been a lazy student, that's for sure).

The BA is really just a formality on the way to the Master's. When I started at university, the norm here (at least in the humanities) was to go straight for the MA degree, and there was little talk of the BA. However, a couple years back they changed the rules and made the BA a compulsory prerequisite for the MA. So, here we are, and it is nice to finally have something to show for the years I've spent at the university. Now, if everything goes to plan, and I can force myself to do some actual work, this time next year I could be graduating with the Master of Arts degree, all ready for unemployment...

Street Fighter IV

Update: Review of Street Fighter IV

It's been a while again since my last game review, but here we go again with Street Fighter IV, which turned out to be one of the most entertaining fighting games I've played in a while. I'd never really played a lot of Street Fighter previously, it didn't feel quite as interesting and original as games like Guilty Gear, but I'm finally starting to get it.

I haven't really gotten around to playing other kinds of games since MGS4 last winter, though, which is a shame. I'm getting far too lazy...