kux19

Notice to all Swashbucklers

2009-06-03T23:18:27Z

Attention all who fight like dairy farmers or cows:

http://www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland

Telltale Games (who brought you Sam And Max Seasons 1 and 2 and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People) in cooperation with LucasArts (who essentially defined and killed the point and click adventure game) is on the verge of producing a couple of things. The first is an episodic series of games for PC Download and X-Box Live starting in July, once again bringing life to the once thought defunct Monkey Island series, staffed by a whole mess of people who worked on the original projects. Dave Grossman (Former LucasArts, now Telltale, one of the big three who wrote the original two games) is the design director, Ron Gilbert (the very writer of the first two games) was called in as a creative consultant, even Dominic Armato is excited to be flying back out to reprise his role as Guybrush Threepwood.

Secondly is a complete overhaul of the first game. The Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition will be made accessible to a new generation of gamers complete with a new art style painting the backgrounds, new dialogue, a tweaked SCUMM Engine and vocals (once again, Dominic Armato all too happy to lend his pipes for Guybrush), I've gotta say the remake looks pretty sweet. If this does well on download play, it could give life back to the point and click adventure genre, something that's been dead for far too long and needed in the face of modern hardware (DS and Wii, I'm lookin' at you).

The Final Stamp: Convention Pictures!

2009-05-29T22:14:47Z

It's never quite over until the photos, the best sorta souvenieer, get organized. About an hour or so of minor touch ups later, we have an album!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v243/Guilliam/Jacon%202009/

I'm using a new digital camera, a General Electronics A835. Still a glorified gadget, but a major step up from the film job I was using last year, and it made editing the photos a much faster and cheaper affair. A few of em' turned out kinda blurry, but I can never bring myself to toss a photo (though a few may have to be dropped when I throw an album of hard copies together). I guess a combination of new hardware and not having done this for a year kinda shows...ah well. Just gonna make AFO's shots all the better.

Final Jacon among other things

2009-05-25T09:11:01Z

S'been a year since the last update, huh? Well, it's 3am as I start to write and I've gotta lot of stuff I wanna say. What better way to celebrate than an update on Jacon's last hurrah...still, I guess a little debriefing is in order.

I've been trying to make some changes in my life and it's just taken a little while to get comfortable with em'. First and foremost among the major changes was a recent departure from my former job at 7-11. My friend and co-worker Woody got me a position as a package handler at the FedEx loading docks and that's working out beautifully. The job starts at 3 am and runs for a few hours where I'd just be sleeping anyway. Ultimately I make a little less money, but it's a comparable wage for a much more active (and thus enjoyable) role, there's room for plenty of advancement and I get to work with a great bunch. Admitedly, I do miss the store work a bit, but they were making a lot of changes under a new manager I just couldn't see eye to eye with (my former co-workers, AJ and Woody, inform me a lot of sh**'s been going down since I left, so I know it's not just me). In any event, AJ and I are gonna hang outside the workplace and I still get to work with Woody. As far as I'm concerned, the best of the job stays with me.

During the transitional period between those jobs, I've made some personal changes as well. A wardrobe change (since I had absolutely no sense of style this time last year), a more involved undertaking in learning to cook (because everybody should know this, and dessert is an awesome thing to know how to make) and there's been some talk about me returning to SCC, ostensibly to rework my former AA into a degree in photography (the job market sucks right now, but maybe it'll stable up by the time I'm done). I've also been trying to get a little more involved with the family, having the opportunity to prepare dinner from my grandparents last month (Jamaican spiced chicken, homemade creamed corn, white sauce macaroni and cheese and a lemon pound cake for dessert) and make a cherry pecan pudding for mother's day (easy, but damn if it doesn't look more impressive than it is).

Anyways, onto the main event. After ten years of bringing otaku throughout Florida a kickass gathering to congregate and enjoy the industry with each other, the staff finally agreed that it was time to pursue their outside interests and make this the big finale. But how exactly did it stand up? Lessee...

Friday: Didn't get much of a chance to do any of the events, save Anime That Doesn't Suck with Joey Snackpants. It's the same show every time, but he's such an amusing speaker, I'd reccomend seeing it every time if you have the spare hour here or there. I spent this day mainly darting from one end of the convention center to the other snapping photos. I'll post a photobucket link as soon as I've had the time to upload and edit the pictures....oh, right! I got a new digital camera for Christmas! It's a little gas guzzler in terms of battery life, but I can get so many more pictures with this in a single day.

Saturday: After work, the weekend was mine. What did I do on that day....well, again, mostly take pictures, but!

Breaking into Comics Panel: Honestly, I just needed a place to sit down, but this was a pretty interesting panel about artwork, scanning, publishing and copyright. Don't see myself using this information, but the speakers were amusing and full of insight (and business cards, apparently) that had everybody hanging onto every word.

Fansubbing 101: Immediately following the above panel, this was held by a girl who translates and fansubs J-dramas. She started by talking about the work that generally goes into producing a sub, like obtaining a raw video, the programs used for dialogue insertion and how to actually insert the dialogue. In the second half, she brought up a scene from a goofy detective show and asked the audience to provide the dialogue. Somehow, we ended up making the scene even sillier by calling an Asian lady Miley Cirus and adding sub-notes telling everybody Hai = Yes. Definately the amusing high point of the day, but certainly not the moment of greatest interest...

Robotech Panel: If it's about robots, I'm there! This was more or less the same panel at AFO two years ago, but you can't go wrong at a gathering where you can reminisce about the awesome cool things you grew up with for a while. Here's hoping AFO gets a mecha panel!

Incident at 0000 Hours: It can be said the two biggest events on Saturday were the Masquerade Ball and the Hentai Cafe, both starting around 11pm. The lines were the longest of anything at the con, taking up nearly the entire convention center just to support em', downstairs and up. Unfortunately, I didn't have a mask to be downstairs and the line was too long to be horny upstairs, so I just wandered around for a bit before settling down outside the viewing rooms. I ended up playing a little DS and talking with some others, a female staff supervising the rooms, a male staff working with a Macross Valkyrie figure and two guys playing Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. While I was a little disappointed there was nothing to do before, that actually turned into a pretty enjoyable couple of hours.

About one hour in though, something happened. Con staff started coming through and asked if we had seen a certain individual. We didn't see anything and they started searching the viewing rooms before quickly moving on. We all wondered what was going on but quickly returned to what we were doing. When they came through again in about five minutes, somebody moved to find out what was going on. At first, we only learned that the Masquerade was under lockdown. It would take another five or so before somebody told us that they were searching for a young man who'd been feeling girls up at the ball. Now they were running around from room to room all over the center trying to track him down and....do whatever it is they planned to do with him. Dunno if they ever found him, but a few of the late night events had to be called because some Captain Hormone couldn't keep his mitts in check.....bastard. I missed the Lupin movie for your stupid buggery!

Sunday: We all know it's the slow day, and while it was no exception here, the turnout was fairly large. Guess everybody wanted to say Sayonara at the end.

Viewings: Shin Mazinger and Tales of the Abyss. The frst is a remake of the classic pioneering super robot series by Go Nagai and the second is an anime adaptation of the Tales Of game by the same name. The first has me convinced Nagai should probably focus on non-Mazinger materials for a while since the first episode seemed to be a random mishmosh of concepts that lacked explanation and only a fan of the early series would have a chance of getting (and even then, it had some pretty crazy stuff in it). The Tales of the Abyss showing was worth seeing, even if you don't play the Namco games. The artwork was true to the game, the story paced along pretty well and it had some pretty funny moments in the second episode. I'd reccomend that one if you ever get a chance.

Gundam Panel: Cancelled.......BLARG!

Steve Bennet - How to Talk to Girls: To be politically correct, he called it "How Anybody can talk to Anybody", but I figured if anybody could use some advice, it'd be me (though I bet I'm not the only one who'd say that). This was an open discussion where the subject was how to approach, talk to and potentially break the friend barrier with somebody you might show some interest in. For the most part it was Q&A, and that made for a good deal of dispersed amusing comments, but there was a lot of serious talk on both sides about ice breaking, general conversation, handling rejection and the like. Above all hilarious and much was said worth consideration.

Overall: Despite the fact that it rained nearly all weekend and that unfortunate incident on Saturday night, it looked like everybody was having a good time. It may not have been their strongest year, but JACON went out on an enjoyable weekend that will leave everybody with memories of a legacy come to an end.

So, one last time....Sayonara, JACON!

Here's lookin' at AFO!

Step Twenty Seven: One spazz out later...

2008-05-15T03:16:19Z

By means of concession, I'm able to recover from last night's little spastic moment. I guess I owe a little lark for that showing. Here's a little lesson in life Linda (co-worker) dropped by me earlier:

A woman was fired from the school board recently. She'd been driving a bus for sixteen years and already qualified for retirement by a good five years and was four away before her designated retirement. What most drivers know is that school buses are equipped with cameras for safety reasons. What most people in general don't know is that said buses keep their cameras running 24/7. Even when the engine stops, the footage rolls. So, what do a woman being fired and continuously rolling surveillance tapes have in common?

I'll give you the life lesson and let you piece it together: never have sex on a school bus.

So, yesterday I kinda spazzed. I do that when big things go a bit awry. Vyse is a proportional nightmare for all the little mistakes I made, and there's no chance I'll have this ready for Jacon. After a day of work and amusement from the general crowd today (plenty of people out there have it worse), I got my little dramatic pressure released and feel back to normal (as normal as I get anyway).

Jacon....hopefully Friday and Saturday, but the new girl got canned for calling in sick too many times and bringing her personal issues to work. If somebody else can't cover for me, this may just end up being a Saturday affair for me (I put the request in two months ago....didn't count on us losing so many hands between then and now).

Weekend of Nerdly Endulgances....just focus on that, and everything will "like as" itself.

Step Twenty Six: Defeat

2008-05-14T04:14:46Z

For a while now, I've been suffering from a lack of computer functionality (the damn thing won't turn on. I'm granted a concession right now to make use of another terminal). This is all hard to spit out, but

All this work...all this learning....all this running around and excitement over having something to do....all for nothing?

For a while now, I've been mulling it over...can I get over some inaccuracies? Sure. My build is off....so, not every character has been matched to figure in the cosplay world...can I face everybody knowing I put forth my best effort and still come out...subpar?

Each question comes in turn....each question comes with an answer of unrelenting shrugging....but why? If I don't care about any of this, why am I second guessing everything I've been doing for the past two months? Because on some level, they all do matter...but more to the point, I'm not flying with the fire of point four anymore.

When I began this little journey a year ago, I had something to keep me going....I don't know if it was hope or delusion, but it's something I need to let go of....Vyse was part of something else...something..distant. When point four became beyond my reach, I thought to keep moving. I thought if I kept going, things would work themselves out. However...

This isn't me. Pimptastic as I think Vyse is, the mainstream arguement isn't my forte....the experience I sought to gain with this costume was meant to segue into something else...however, on levels I'm not ready to divulge, moving into that would have reprecussions that don't sit well with me. The shame I feel now at my failiure is almost enough to keep me from the impending Jacon at hand....however...

My sentiment overrides my shame on this one. People who take such pride and joy in their work....I'm not ready to stand among them....even so, this was never about the costume, it was about the convention and it's meaning to me....some people have Anime Expo...some people have Otakon....this one, Jacon, is mine.

I can only apologize to anybody who read these entries, having any bit of confidence in me for the days to come....especially you, Captain. I was hoping to meet you face to face in pirate attire. To face you now, void of results...

I'm sorry for any misplaced faith, but my biggest flaw finally caught up with me....I was doing this for the wrong reason...I need to reconsider my position...and see if I have the right reason.

Side Notes:

- Many surfaces came out curved when I tried to create a straight seam with lighter materials. Should've stretched at first to create a suitable edge.

- Couldn't find anything to satisfy me for those yellow notches on the front of the coat....what the heck are those anyway?

- Custom building things with hot glue, carboard and hot glue....I rather enjoyed this psuedo construction work...

Step Twenty Five: To Make Said Steps...

2008-04-18T00:53:18Z

The end results of my prop construction are two cutlasses and an eyepatch frame.

Cuttlasses: With a base of insulating foam from Home Depot, I used my glue stick reserves to coat each blade with a scalding layer of hot glue. It didn't take as long as one might think since it dries so quickly, but a brief moment of lost concentration resulted in two pretty painful little burns on my left hand. Just the same, the swords are considerably more durable and have the stability to be held as Vyse holds them (one is thicker at the hilt to be held in the left hand like a tonfa, whilst the other is a little thinner save the grip to be held in the right hand as a normal sword). They look a BIT clunky, but since they were made by my hands, I just can't bring myself to not love how they turned out. I can't wait to apply other methods on future projects (I REALLY get into working with my hands). The blades are painted red (Pyri/Increm was the default spell set for Vyse) and the hilts are yellow with some masking tape for wraps.

Eyepatch frame: My second eyepatch and it's not even going to cover my eye. Melted down and painted white, all it needs now is a suitable strap to fix it to my head.

Next Up: Since my little sewing mishap, I'm behind schedule on the coat. Still, all I need to do is sew in a collar (urk...), attach those yellow clamp/patch/things on the front and connect the sleeves. Also gotta make a scarf for around the neck....not QUITE sure how to go about making it, but the worst is behind me. Shouldn't be TOO hard...

As for boots, my plan is to make a pair of covers to wear over my sneakers. The guide from Jenova's cosspace topic offered some insight into construction, and I've got a crazy little idea for soles...I'll divulge that info once I know if it works or not. No sense in passing out info without merit.

"Our strategy today will open the road to a better tomorrow" - Zhuge Liang (Dynasty Warriors 5/Shin Sengoku Musou 4)

Step Twenty Four: Hack and Slash

2008-04-10T01:32:11Z

I had to delay my progress on Vyse because of an unfortunate accident involving zipper installation (somehow sewed the front of the coat to the back of the coat. Dunno how THAT happened). After a hassle in salvaging and making a new coat base, I've been working on some of the props for the costume: the eyepatch and the cutlass.

Eyepatch: As far as I can tell, the eyepatch Vyse wears is a simple plastic frame on a black cloth strap. To create the frame, I drew the basic shape on paper, holding the shape over my eye and then making marks and cutting the pattern as necessary. Tracing the shape on a curved sheet of cardboard and coating the resulting frame in duct tape, I used a bit more tape to create a basin around the shape of the frame piece to create a makeshift mold. So, what goes in the mold? Say it with me now...

Hot glue! Save a slight burn here and there, it's safe to work with, quick to dry, and with the scalding hot tip of the gun, easy to shape. Right now, I have a nice and smooth piece of plastic looking frame, ready to be painted and have some cloth and a plastic lens attached.

Cutlass: What a sight I must've been lugging a big ol' sheet of insulation foam a mile and a half home. So large it couldn't fit in my car, it was a nice day out, I hiked out to Home Depot for a sheet of foam about three feet taller and twice as wide as I (only conventional size I could get it in). Long story short, I have two pink foam cutlass', but despite the overall durability of the foam, they're still pretty flimsy. I plan to coat them in paste before painting and applying the wraps to the hilts. Even then, these are gonna be pretty delicate props.

Nerd Front Updates:
- Capcom, whilst working on Ace Attorney Five, is also producing another game: Miles Edgeworth: Perfect Prosecutor. Famitsu's data says it's gonna leave behind the courtroom battles for this game and switch to a more traditional adventure game style. Case work aside, they're gonna have a tall order to fill with the complete change in gameplay.

- Suparobo.Jp has a big ol' section dedicated to their new project in colaboration with Monolith Soft, Endless Frontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga. Since Monolith Soft has a hand in this, KOS-MOS Version 4 (Xenosaga), Reiji Arisu and Xiaomu (NamcoxCapcom originals) are coming out for a spin! The charcater designs look great and the promise of Banpresto supervised vocal work on the DS has me pumped for this one! Here's hoping for a US release!

Side Step Thirty Three: Smash It To Me

2008-03-19T04:19:56Z

Brother Timmus had me over on Sunday to break in Super Smash Brothers Brawl in a little co-op/competition. He was getting a little tired of the restricted options on WiFi play, so he figured the best way to see how the game measured up was to call in his usual sparring partner to really test the balance issues.

Brawl received a lot of nonsense concerning a number of issues. Director Sakurai and the development team studied a lot of the "advanced maneuvers" (wavedashing, for example) that came up in Super Smash Brothers Melee and did their best to balance out the general movements in the game so such things couldn't be exploited by more advanced players. Sakurai said that they did this because he took a look at videogames these days and saw how hard they were or how far they were geared towards certain kinds of gamers. The goal was to create a more user friendly game with fewer entry bars. Sadly, it's been met with a great deal of criticism since "pros" can't use these ultra-fine exploits to enhance their fighting. To cut it short, there are two kinds of melee players in Brawl: those who DID use these moves and now have their most potent weapons removed, and those who DIDN'T use these and don't suffer any loss at all.

The next complaints stemmed from the general slowdown from Melee to Brawl. It's true, the new Wii game DOES move a bit slower than Melee, but this is only to more finely control the speed tiers for all the characters so the Power:Speed ratio is more cleanly distributed. The general understanding is that the faster you are, the less power you have, but it's never really been that simple ^_^.

Notes of Interest:

Ganondorf (Zelda fame) - Slowest running speed, second slowest walking speed (Jigglypuff has the slowest walk). Still has the uber slow B punch wherein you can go get a pizza and just be finishing when you get back. Undeniably the strongest in raw power.

Sonic (Hedgehog series) - Weakest in power, but fast enough to run circles around Captain Falcon and Fox (second and third in speed tiers respectively). Shows up for a few seconds in the main story mode (Subspace Emissary) just so he's there for the last boss fight....Sonic and Mario together for the big epic showdown every gamer from the 90s dreamed of....guess that's enough.

Pitt (Kid Icarus) - Pitt is the second most obscure choice for Brawl, but the fine balance they brought to his character for offense and maneuverability makes him a likely contender for tournament favorite (though Marth will likely be the top choice). His bow/naginata makes him control a BIT like Link, but easier to learn and with greater recovery options.

Snake (Metal Gear series) - He fights with artillery, flies with a balloon and hides in a box. Given his general versatility in terms of speed, offense and maneuverability, he COULD be a tournament favorite if not for the fact that his forward smash aims just a little ahead of his feet (taking out your bazooka and aiming it down is NOT a smart way to kick off your Smash Bros. career....oh, Kojima-dono....how could you let them do that?!).

Ike (Fire Emblem, Path of Radiance Version) - Because he's swinging Ragnell around with one hand, Ike is built for power and taking hits. Not especially fast, but he compensates with a large swing range, high percentage hits and the dangerous Aether as his last recovery move. Offers a bit more difference from Marth than Roy did.

ROB - Y'know that little Robot Nintendo sold the initial NES units with during the big videogame crash in the 80s? That little toy they designed for use with two crappy games Nintendo used to fool people into thinking the NES was a toy and not the "dying fad" of videogames? Well, Nintendo showered their affections on the little guy and made him a full fledged Smasher in Brawl (swear to god, everybody THOUGHT the actual promo video showing ROB was a joke). He requires some patience to use, but he is NOT a joke character.

I could keep my nerdgasm going forever discussing my little observations from a run through the Subspace Emissary (Main story mode), some competetive smashing (Tim won our first Brawl match, three points to two....still a worthy first match, even if I lost ^^) or a little co-op collective (Co-Op event matches...Brother Timmus and Kux are formidable indeed), but I think I'll cut it short before I ramble on in a never ending post. Vyse progress next time!

Step Twenty Three: A pair of flamboyant sleeves

2008-03-10T04:09:37Z

Megacon happened this weekend, but with my clearance for Jacon weekend (workwise) I found myself a bit ill-equipped to ask for any time to go down and see all the hubub. Ah well....next year. I've got other things to take care of now.

The next time I get a weekday off (seems work has me pinned down this week) I'm heading into Orlando to look into a bartending school of some repute. With all the recent quittings at the store I can't quite bring myself to leave anytime soon, but with a few months and the proper classes, I can be ready to move onto something bigger when the opportunity presents itself (I've discreetly had my eyes on job listings for the past few months. A trained barkeep [and eventually, chef] will always be in demand in central Florida). People keep telling me I'm in the wrong line of work...I suspect 7-11 thinks I won't be around for a terribly long time either. Still, I rather like getting in contact with people by day and there's just enough down time to ponder a few things between tasks (can't stand work if there's nothing to do for prolonged periods of time....gah, I hated my last job for that).

Sunday was my day off, so when my shift let out on Saturday I took to designing and modifying the sleeves I've prepared for my Vyse coat. Thus far, the main body of the jacket is sewn together (none of those yellow things on the front or collar attached though) and needs a little shaping on the edges before I can put the sleeves on. The actual sleeves are finished (those sash/buckle deals on the wrist look horrible up close, but to just look at them....sooooo coool!) and were fun to plan and build (despite one MAJOR mistake which I had a little fun turning around). The only issue left to resolve with the sleeves is just picking up a little jewelry adhesive to keep those buckles from sliding around from one end of the sash to the other.

Glaring newbish mistakes aside (I'm sure I'll get some advice some way or another come Jacon), I'm quite pleased with my results. Next year, I'll actually have something to wear to Gasparilla and not just be "half a pirate" next time.

Side Step Thirty Two: Job Update

2008-02-25T02:54:53Z

For a while, I didn't like the notion about talking about my employment. My first job sounded important, but it bored the living hell outta me. My current job is at the bottom of the bucket, but I actually seem to enjoy what I'm doing. I could never get over the concept of what other people might think...lack of ambition...no direction...in it just for the money...well, for a while, those first two were true and now that it's gone, that last bit seems to be the case. That kind of attitude kept me pretty reclusive for a while (I'm not avoiding people for lack of LJ presence. Nothing's just really been going on right now), but in my ideal, there's no place for doubt.

All your life, you hear about how you should find a job you enjoy rather than one that pays well with strife. If I'd seen the truth in that earlier, I probably would've signed on with 7-11 much sooner than I did. The Nation Law Firm, my former place of employment, gave me a small clerical position when I graduated high school. I maintained that position throughout my time at SCC, developing my education to the standards I deemed necessary (if you knew the high school I had to put up with, this would seem like SUCH a reasonable pursuit). For the longest time, I was in it for the money, but I knew I'd have to find something more to life. That's the second reason I decided to take up my studies for another two years (two and one thirds years, if we want need to be technical). It's a shame I've carried in silence for the longest time. I could never figure out what my ambition in life was. When people told me to consider something you enjoy, I could never figure out how to make a living out of something I enjoy.

I get a thrill out of working with my hands. My dad worked at SYSCO, held a position at a contracting yard of sorts, and had a profound ability to work with tools, so I guess I get that from him. Growing up, I had an interest in working with whatever I could get my hands on. Lego, Erector, model kits, you name it. Even now I dabble a bit in sewing for my own personal reasons. Some time ago, I also began to take in interest in the culinary arts. My reasoning there is simply that a clever man who knows his way around the kitchen need not take up a ramen diet ('cept when the next Super Robot Taisen comes out...heh heh). It occured to me then...know who gets to combine these forces for a decent living?

A chef! He benefits from a skill to live by and has the added bonus of his own brand of craftsmanship all day. At first, it felt a bit overwhelming to start over again with a new vision in mind, but plenty of people have held far grander ideals with far less to their name. To that, we look at the present and see where to go from here....

7-11 allows me much more contact with the general public than the law firm ever did (I mostly did little paper-pushing and janitorial tasks. Paid well enough for the time, but....). I get to move around a lot more, strike up a little conversation with the customers, and once in a while, amuse the patrons with a little slight of hand (It's just a little thing I do wherein I toss the change from a transaction from my left hand behind the counter to a waiting hand about it. It somehow seems to make an impression with our patrons). I know this is only phase one in my greater ambition, but I can't deny I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Speaking of such, that little side comment about the change tossing led to a few comments from the patrons. Aside from a smile and a laugh, I occasionally get a comment saying I should be tending bar with such behavior. Usually, one doesn't give much consideration to offhand comments, but I took a moment to consider a few points which could put that to my favor, namely:

1) I know nothing of alcohol (don't touch the stuff). Seems to me a chef should know SOMETHING about the stuff
2) My current position offers some of the experience necessary, so any further training could be more easily facilitated with common sense in customer service
3) I do enjoy entertaining people when the occasion presents itself

It's something I've been thinking about as I study cooking technique on my own for the time being (gotta make the future education come as painlessly as possible). Right now I'm only considering it, and while the road ahead is already long enough, the destination is still certain...eyes ahead, take no guff without objection, and let em' know em' know my ambition is finally at the fore! *pumps arm in the air*

Side Notes on the job:
1) Six times now I've been told I'm fairly chipper for a 7-11 employee. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? @_@
2) Twice I've been toid I have nice eyes. Feels weird taking a compliment for something I didn't really have a hand in.

Side Step Thirty One: Pirates took over Tampa

2008-01-27T06:00:30Z

Went down to Gasparilla today. Since it's not exactly a common knowledge event, I guess it could best be summed up as a pirate themed Mardi Gras. There are street vendors, a big ol' parade with pirate/cowboy/school themed floats, lots of booze and a lot of bead throwing. To put it bluntly, a public forum for getting drunk and throwing stuff. Yeah, I know. It's the greatest thing EVER!....well, okay. It's a little crazy, but it's a whole lotta fun!

A friend asked me to come down a while ago and I managed to work my schedule around so I could go down and see what all the hubub was about. Apparently, this is a regular thing for her and gathering beads from the parade was something of a sporting event for her. She had six individuals at her disposal and a role for every one of us. Here's a brief readout of everybody's tasks:

Jess - Our fearless admiral for this outing and the one who summoned me. She was on our frontline, waving her arms around and drawing the attention of bead throwers. She made some signs that paid mention to radio shows and sports teams (which drew several beads our way). Wore a cute pirate costume.

Morgan - Jess' first and foremost partner in crime. She was also on the front with Jess, helping out by drawing further attention and sliding up to the rails by the road when able. In pirate gear, but just her top and a hat.

Vivian - The third and final on the main front. Dressed as a wench, Jess had planned on using her cleavage as a means of drawing beads in (I dunno if it helped, but it certainly didn't hurt).

Justin - Having done this before, he was on the left side, helping to keep people out of our space from the rear and the side (I'm told it's usually a lot more violent than it was today). Wore a pirate's hat that looked more like a pimp's hat.

Alan - Unknown before today, but apparently a resident from farther north (either Jacksonville or St. Augustine...forget which, exactly). No costume, but he was one of two "spare necks". Whenever one of the girls got a large catch of beads or was feeling discomfort from wearing too many, one of the two spares would take the extra load (though Vivian was pretty good about taking a large load of beads round her neck).

Magus - The famous Mag himself. Bit of a surprise, but he's a pretty cool guy. In Jack Sparrow-ish (but fairly unique) garb, his role as a veteran was to use a big ol' Jolly Roger to halt the passage of beads (it actually helped to compete with two guys using nets behind us). He even managed to catch some strands on the very tip of the flag pole!

Kux - The newbie and final member of the rearline. I was told many times that I couldn't use my usual polite ways if I was gonna be in the backline and holding back anybody who shoved forward (I was told to look out for this, but it never happened. Just the same...). I was told to be an asshole. It never came up, but just the same...in my own words..."Very well. An asshole I shall be!". I sewed up an eyepatch for the day and also functioned as the other spare neck.

For about two hours we stood along the sidelines in a crowd of drunks and pirately garbed individuals, competing with outstretched arms from all directions and two nets on big sticks from behind. Float after float, high school marching band after high school marching band, arrested hick after arrested hick (law enforcement was all over that), we took in more beads than Alan and I had neck to go around. When it came time to unload the spoils in Jess' trunk, it wasn't possible for me to remove all the beads from my own head alone (Morgan had to loop it all off while I arched my head over).

Despite a late start and a few annoying reverberating echoes from cannonfire under the bridge (several floats were equipped with small cannons firing blank, but loud, rounds), I can't think of a better way to round off the first month of a new year than a little uninhibited goofing off* in Tampa. My performance earned me an invite into Jess' little Arrr-my next year (her bad joke. Not mine).

* = I do feel for Tampa's Department of Sanitation. Buttload of beads and an ocean of beer bottles to clean up from less than capable sanitary skills on the general public's part.

Side Step Thirty: One Step Back for Two Steps Forward

2008-01-02T17:10:49Z

The last moments of 07 rolled by two days ago. That in mind, I've got a few things to look over to make 08's plans come to fruition...

1) Employment - The old firm job isn't going anywhere and it was too damn boring to stand anymore. Saying my goodbyes there, I took up the most basic position conceivable - 7-11 Sales Associate. It's not glamorous or difficult, but there's always something to do and room to advance. The pay is less in a short run, but in a long run, it won't take much to surpass my old wages.

I fear it took me too long to figure out what I want in the long run...still, no sense in worrying about what I can't undo. Gotta look ahead and take control to realize my designs for the future (more on that later)...speaking of such....

2) Congoing - With the coming of a new job comes the planning of a new schedule. I expect 08 will be no different from 07 in terms of what I can and can't get to, but to maintain a good professional image, I'm gonna have to make some unfortunate cuts. The first is putting my costumery plans on hold. Until I'm in a more stable position, I need to keep my plans in check (so to speak). Secondly, I'll likely have to drop Metro, lest I have a free Saturday to visit. It's a shame, that one, since the costumes there were a cut above anything else. A fine line between confidence and arrogance....wonder which one I displayed?

On a side note, it costs a fair sum to maintain photo operations the way I do. One newcomer cosplayer will not be missed for lack of a service like mine (not everybody schedules will Maboroshi-dono or Cosplaylab).

3) ???? - Ha...confidence or arrogance indeed. Perhaps a complete lack of both on this part. In any case, this didn't work out, but frankly, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. 07 was an interesting little experiment for me, and what failed on one end turned out unexpected results on another....Mission Failed, but no regrets here.

That said, I feel like I'm at the bottom of the world right now...but that's easily resolved. It's gonna take a little time and effort...it's not a question of whether or not I can turn things around...the fact is, I will.

Side Step Twenty Nine: Days long gone

2007-12-26T00:51:51Z

Happy Decemberween one and all! I love this time of the year. The ability to bring a smile to somebody's face, even if just for a few moments, makes all the time spent in thought over gift giving worthwhile. Since I can't very well gift everybody on my friend list, I thought I might share a little story as a means of amusing the people who bother to pop in here every so often.

This is a snippet from a long, timeless tale in the history of China. While you could read about the historical events in the right textbooks, a ficticious version was weaved into one of the country's most beloved stories, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (it's a lofty read, but it's a fascinating twist on history). Most of the differences between history and the books are giving life to those who didn't especially play major roles in history and giving befitting deaths to the warriors of the times (many premature deaths of natural causes don't make for an interesting read). Koei also crafted a game series called Dynasty Warriors which takes even further liberties with the novels work (so never trust that series for historically accurate info. Ironically, the following is an excerpt from the game's history section which I double checked for factual data. @_@).

Fall of the Han - The Yellow Turban Rebellion

By the end of the second century, the once infallible Han Dynasty suffered from internal strife and corruption, and have become a shadow of it's former self. The land fell into chaos, and the people, no longer able to rely on the authority of the Han, turned to a religious sect known as "The Way of Peace" for salvation. Zhang Jiao, the leader of The Way of Peace, boldly declared that the Age of the Han had passed, and that he would usher in a "New Age of The Way of Peace". Through his rhetoric, anti-imperial sentiment began to spread across the land. In 184 AD, Zhang Jiao finally made his move to take control of the land. Giving himself the title of "Great Teacher", he began to organize the many followers he accumulated through his miracles into a military force.

When news of his plans was leaked to the Imperial Court, Zhang Jiao immediately mobilized his new army with the help of his brothers, Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. The bulk of this force was a peasant militia that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. All soldiers under Zhang Jiao wore yellow scarves around their heads as a tribute to their master. Thus, these soldiers came to be known as the "Yellow Turbans", and their movement would go down in history as "The Yellow Turban Rebellion". Their unbreakable unity made them seem unstoppable as they tore through Imperial Forces in regions across the land.

To seize back the momentum from the Yellow Turban Forces, The Imperial Court assigns generals Huangfu Song, Lu Su, and Zhu Jun to form a subjugation force and go on the offensive against Zhang Jiao. Meanwhile, You Province Prefect Liu Yan begins to recruit volunteer troops to aid in the efforts of the Han Forces. One of the many who answered Liu Yan's call was Liu Bei, who with his sworn brothers, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, had vowed to bring order back to the land and restore the Han Empire to it's former glory. Meanwhile, Cao Cao, the aptly named "Hero of Chaos", has already begun to make a name for himself by defeating Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. Liu Bei, though joining the battle later, also makes an impression by breaking through Yellow Turban lines to rescue Imperial General Dong Zhuo. The momentum had begun to sway towards the Imperial Forces.

The loss of momentum for the Yellow Turbans would become permanent after the loss of their leader, Zhang Jiao, to illness. Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang also died in battle shortly thereafter. The rebellion was quelled within' a year after that, and remnant forces were subjugated effectively through the efforts of Imperial officers such as Sun Jian. Thus, The Yellow Turban Rebellion came to an end. The end results were various. There were some who gained power and some who lost it. There were those who were rewarded amply and those who came away nearly empty-handed. As such, the end of this rebellion was only to be the beginning of an age of war and chaos.

This outlines the basics of The Yellow Turban Rebellion (Wiikipedia has more details pertaining to the specifics of the uprising). If one were to dig a little deeper, one would learn that Dong Zhuo was initially grateful to the sworn brothers, but shunned them when he learned they held no political or military office (after which, Guan Yu and Liu Bei had to restrain Zhang Fei for desire to kill this man). Ironically, this minor incident amongst the chaos could never have been seen as foreshadowing to a complete turnabout in their situations.

Anyways, I hope this entertained anybody who stumbled across it.

Side Step Twenty Eight: Bells go Jingle

2007-12-06T23:59:36Z

The holiday season has finally come. Right after we finish falling asleep from the turkey, it's time to get right into the Christmas shopping before the streets become a living game of Pac Man (moving around, trying to get all your little dots, but no matter how good you are, you're eventually gonna run into something scary). In my travels across the internet looking for ideas, I come across some pretty...well, UNIQUE gift ideas when I run a generic search. Let me explain some of the ideas which top the list of a certain website I found:

1 - Coughing and Screaming Ashtray - This is pretty self explanitory. When used, this particular ashtray, which is shaped like a pair of lungs, hacks and wheezes as used. We have two kinds of people who will actually buy this. You've got the nonsmoker who buys it as a gag gift whilst trying to drop a hint (or saying "I hate your habit so much that I think this gift suits you) and the smoker who's just all kinds of messed up in the head.

2 - Safety Keychain Breathalyzer/ 101 Recipes with Beer - Independantly, these are unremarkable items, but I happened to find these within' five slots of each other on the same page. That being the case, I can't QUITE determine whether they're being practical or ironic.

3 - Sudoku Toilet Paper - I'll take the moral highroad and avoid the obvious joke, but I will say that I think public restrooms should use these. Even the restrooms at my favorite bookstores aren't above getting a little graffiti on the stall walls (vandalizing a bookstore....how low have you fallen on the misanthropic chain to resort to this?) so it occurs to me that a lot of people take pens to the bathroom. I figure this little activity would give these bored "writers" something to do.

4 - Make your own Hot Sauce Kit - I'll give some room for maneuverability here if the following two part question warrants considering this: do you know a fan of hot sauce and just how crazy are they for it?

5 - 12 Hour Heated Socks - Simple socks with little battery packs strapped in around the ankles. Not the biggest fashion statement ever made, but I'll say this is a regional gift. If you live in a wet region (where you could blow your ankles off) or a warm region (for obvious reasons), not the best call. On the other hand, cold and dry climates and general sock fanatics, get em' a six pack and let em' go nuts.

Thankfully, I don't look for a precise match, but rather hunt for inspiration. Funny thing is that I don't tend to need help with most of the people on my list. In my family, we shop for our expected obligations (in my case, Mother and Brother) plus another family member we pick in a random draw. Don't know how it happens, but I usually get one of my aunts and they're pretty easy to shop for (they love Disney on their down time, so I work something in along those lines). My biggest holiday concern is typically my Mom, since I never quite know how to work along the things she likes. Last year I really lucked out because Billy Joel was appearing at the TD Waterhouse in Feburary and I remembered her listening to him all the time while I was growing up. One trip to the box office later, two tickets and parking, come the usual Christmas meeting, everybody's raving about my "knack" for gift giving. Now I've something of a reputation to live up to.

Still, I could think of worse things to be cursed with. = )

I'm just about finished with my holiday sorties. It would seem I'll need to make one more trip southward for a certain delivery, but other than that, I should only need another trip or two to kick back and enjoy the sights of Christmas (plenty of great lighting displays a stone's throw away in Casselberry).

So until a further check in, best of luck to everybody who stumbles in across this un'!

Side Step Twenty Seven: Dust to Dust (LSK-005)

2007-11-27T07:46:11Z

Fear is one of the most variable states of mind I've ever taken a deep look at. Some seek it for amusement, some avoid it for anguish, some study it for interest, and others claim to know little of it for lack of reason. Do you look for it? Run from it? Do you know how to deal with it? A cry out in Spanish, the rev of a chainsaw, the chant of a Zealot or the deep, sadistic breathing of a Regenerator...each serves as a warning and how to deal with it. Still, this is Capcom, and they made the Megaman games. They aren't so inclined to let the player off easily....

Quick review since it's been so long...

Leon Scott Kennedy - The Hero of one of RE2s routes and the main interest of RE4. I'm trying to see it through his eyes.
Ashley Graham - The President's daughter. Leon's trying to keep her alive and get her outta here.
Osmund Saddler - Head of the paganistic cult, Los Illuminados. Using the parasites, Las Plagas, he seeks to gain control of the US Government from the inside out.
Ada Wong - An agent under the employ of Albert Wesker (major antagonist from RE games) and a survivor of the Racoon City Incident. Current orders, unknown.

PERSPECTIVE SWAP!

Blasting that first Regenerator into nothing seemed to alert others to my presence throughout the installation. Working my way down the hall brought about two more, costing me a small fortune in ammo trying to take them down...if they succeeded in getting Ashley back into the US and put these things into action, there's no telling how long it'd take for the world to fall to Los Illuminados. I'd only faced three and they were taking enough ammo to put down entire squads back at the academy. Still, they had a weakness....if I could exploit it and take down Saddler, this whole mess would be over. Moving further into the labs, I found a freezer that opened with the card I secured in the lab. It turned out to be a cryo storage unit, loaded with soldiers, experimental parasites, and on a more morbid note, a few more of those Regenerators, hung up to dry with those freaky looks frozen on their faces. The scope Luis' memo had mentioned was in one of the medical cabinets, but it was frozen shut. Naturally, this meant using the thaw switch to warm things up a bit....

Yeah. I had a bad feeling about this one.

Almost as if on cue, the minute I picked up the thermal scope, one of those Regenerators in the next room woke up and started making his way toward me. Scope and rifle in hand, I decided to test my new toy out. Sure enough, while the body is nothing more than a cold, dead, flesh puppet, it had three warm spots located in it's abdomen, chest and right thigh. While they barely took notice of my shots before, this one screamed in pain each time a bullet pierced one of it's hotspots. With my third shot, it just stood there and started to shake...with it's entire upper body from the waist up exploding on me a few seconds later. I'm glad the process worked and all, but I lost my jacket back when the village chief knocked me out at the start of this little mission...got blood all over my lucky shirt.

With that taken care of, I moved in further. Just when I thought this plot couldn't stink any further, I made it into the waste disposal region of the base. On one hand, it stank....very, very badly. On the plus side, the main disposal chamber had a claw for emptying dumpsters into the bowels of the base and a few infected soldiers just happened to be lying in wait....I was never any good at those crane games as a kid, but I guess something at the academy paid off as I dumped them into the pit offsides. Unfortunately, somebody caught wind of my inner child and turned off the crane via the fuse box...ah well. It was fun while it lasted.

I found Ashley tucked away into an old storage room in the back of the base (if I have to tell you the door was locked, you might not have been paying attention. You can't get into the bathroom around here without two keys and an okay from the general). Moving a little further in, I found another lab, loaded with some biological culture samples. I didn't get far in before I saw something moving on a security monitor. Apparently, I'd found another one of those things...

Regenerator Type Two - Iron Maiden (HUG ME!)

This one looked...different. It had an unnatural twitch over it's entire body as it moved and spikes covered it's skin. This was one enemy I didn't feel like making nice with....a shot to four hotspots cleared it's body of parasites, but I had a little problem....it was still moving. Not in the mood to spend a lot of ammo, I tried shooting his legs out, hoping it would give me some safe passage to dash by...escape was the only thing on my mind...then I saw it. A fifth parasite was lodged in his back! Not only that, but I made out the faint glimmer of something on his waist. One shot later (mind you, I hid behind a table. These things are like exploding nail guns) and I was one storage room key richer. A little backtracking and Ashley was in my (relatively) safe care once again. With no way to move forward, the princess and I had to take a little detour back to waste disposal....yep. Those "bowels of the base" proved to be a pretty easy way to sneak out to the warehouses in the rear of the complex.

To cut a long story short, a little "ride" brough us to the base chapel, with Saddler soley leading the congregation. Before I could even make a move, he waved his hand and I fell to the floor...my chest was throbbing in pain...I couldn't move. I don't quite know how he was doing it, but he was able to manipulate the incomplete parasite inside me. While I was down, he needed even less effort to make Ashley follow him...for whatever reason, he didn't finish me off, so I decided to give chase...however, it got quiet at some point....a little TOO quiet...

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Jack Krauser...he's good...just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, Saddler decided to radio in to ask me if I enjoyed the reunion. When he saw I was less than happy, he suggested that I should play with "It" to kill some boredom. "It"....either he sucks at naming his pets or he's getting senile...in any case, the only way to advance was through an elevator that led through some caverns under the base. Said caverns were a little lonely until "It" showed up...

Saddler's Final Hazard - Code Name "U3" (More commonly called "It")

It broke through a wall of solid rock and knocked me into a maze-like series of cages hanging over a chasm to nowhere. It wouldn't have been so bad, but it jumped in right after me and play tag. Despite closed spaces and his large figure, it was pretty easy to get around it, though my weapons didn't have any noticable effect. Through a series of switches, I was able to release the safety on the cages and drop him into the chasm below, just barely making it to the other side of the cave before the final cage dropped. Another elevator brought me to the surface, with the sky getting closer and closer to morning. The last stretch of base was still under construction, being integrated into a series of old ruins. It could have been a straight walk into the base, but Krauser decided our little meeting earlier wasn't enough time with his old buddy. He shrugged off my questions and told me the door to Saddler was locked, with three pieces to a single key being spread out around the ruins. Two were just lying around....and of course, he had the third. While he did have a submachine gun trained on me, a quick toss of an old grappling hook knocked his aim off center, giving me enough time to make a break for the first piece...

As I moved around, Krauser moved in to fight at close range, punches, kicks and a knife at the ready. He was never much for idle chitchat, so our talk was limited to quick exchanges of hack and slash warfare. I knew his skill all too well. A gun would be asking for it at close range, so it was my only option to fight on his terms. While he had the edge, I still managed to get the first piece before he started to employ sentry guns to fire down at me on my advance. It was at this time that he asked why I'm fighting...truth be told, my assignment has more significance than anybody first realized...I'm fighting so nobody has to suffer the same fate as the people of Raccoon City. Krauser believed that the world could only have order under a powerful, radical thinker...like somebody from Umbrella. Democracy was a weak form of government to him...and if he was conspiring against his home country, I had to take him down at any cost. When I gathered the second piece, Krauser stood above me, tossing his gun and knife aside. As his first real obstacle to establishing his ideal world, he decided to pull no punches to eliminate me, morphing his arm into a twisted blade of flesh and bone...I'd seen this in some of Redfield's old reports. I can't support this now, but I don't think it was a plaga infection....these looked more like Tyrant symptoms. While he still moved as fast as ever moving around, he clearly hadn't the time to master this little arm of his...he moved a bit slower, making dodging a bit easier as I made slash after slash in his rock hard body...it wasn't until I made one slash of chance across his face that he started to react...put simply, his chest burst open and he dropped the third piece. I won't say he was my favorite person in the world, but something didn't feel quite right with killing an old comrade. As I passed through the gate to the final sections of the base, I heard an explosion behind me...seems Krauser had planted dynamite on the ruins. If I'd been a few seconds later, I'd have gone with him.

Immediately thereafter, Saddler decided to give me another buzz. He was actually THANKING me for killing Krauser, saying I'd saved him the trouble. Said he could never trust an American and that I'd done him a huge favor by taking out that arm of his. Even though he was my enemy for a few hours, I couldn't let that slide....I'd get revenge for Krauser, not as the warped radical he was for Umbrella, but the comrade I fought with over two years ago. Unfortunately...

A horde of infected soldiers were lying in wait for me at a makeshift fortification in front of the enemy's final laboratory. They were armed with rocket launchers, chain guns, stun rods and every weapon I'd seen up to this point. I couldn't believe it...they were everywhere and ready to finish me off at a moment's notice. I started to think about how I was going to do this when another radio signal came in. A familiar voice apologized for being late....Mike! I knew that voice! I looked up and saw a big beautiful military chopper overhead. With a reassurance of cover, he gently nudged over a water tower in front of the main gate, taking out a few squads guarding the gate and giving me a chance to strike from the ground.

While I moved towards the lab through a series of crudely propped up metal plates and barbed wire, Mike brought hell from above with machineguns and missiles alike. Whenever a turret needed clearing out, he was on it while I made my move. For the first time all night, our side was in control. Despite being outnumbered two to a legion, I could remove any trace of doubt from my mind and know that they could do nothing to stop us. Thanks to his cover, I made it through the frontline without a hair out of place....only to be ambushed as I came to the entrance of the final lab. The final line had surrounded me at the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. It looked bad, but then Mike finally caught up after polishing off the previous front. With a quick word to take cover, he unloaded the last of his bullets and saved my hide from a pretty quick loss otherwise. It was time to move in, but not before I promised that drinks were on me once this was over.

And then it happened...a rocket came out of nowhere and slammed into the side of the chopper, sending it crashing into the waves below. In impulse, I cried "MIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!" and ran to the cliff....there was no chance he made it....if the rocket didn't kill him, the wreckage would have done it. I looked to the source of the rocket to see the shadows of Saddler and another grunt moving away....Mike....another casualty in his sick plot...another reason to put him down for good. I followed them into the labs, with Ada catching up to me....that's when it happened. As she asked how I was holding up, I grabbed her...around the neck....I began to strangle her with all I had....the parasite. I couldn't control myself...it must have been almost fully grown at this point. I would have killed her if she didn't stab me in the leg and snapped me out of it. The last of the medicine Luis gave me put down the parasite..but this was it. One more time and I'd be one of them. Ada knew there was a way to get that thing out of me...she went ahead to secure the route while I got my act together. Win or lose, this was the end.

In the depths of the labs, I found Ashley in some weird machine....I guess they were trying to speed along the parasite's growth. Saddler was lying in wait, hoping to exercise his control over me before I got Ashley out of there. Fortunately, my angel in red was waiting overhead and opened fire on him with a TMP (an SMG)...turns out mind control isn't Saddler's only parlor trick, as he made every bullet move to his palm and drop out of his hand. While Ashley and I made a break for it, Ada tried to cover our escape...she must have done something to stop him, because an explosion blocked the door we took out with a mess of debris. It gave us the time we needed, but I can't say I wasn't a little worried for her...

The last room in the base was a medical lab with a final memo from Luis. This is where they were researching a means to remove the parasite during his time working for Saddler. As a scientist, he was fascinated with the study of Las Plagas, but quit once he realized this research would be used to make the parasites harder to remove. With his final research at our hands, I had Ashley run the machine over me first...the radiation would kill the parasite, but if the process was too far along, it could kill the subject...finally, something went right. Though it did sting for a bit, the operation worked on both of us without any apparent drawbacks. With the parasites out, it was time to leave. The end of the island brought us to the harbor of the base. We could have left immediately, but something wasn't right...why weren't we being followed now? The only places left to go were to a construction platform up above and the harbor down a tunnel. Leaving Ashley behind, I took the last elevator up to the platform. Ada was hanging from a support beam, with Saddler trying to pull his little Jedi tricks again. While he was busy being pissed off, I threw my knife to cut Ada loose. I was feeling pretty confident now, but Saddler seemed to have recover from the shock of losing his grip on me. He claimed that the American hero prevailing was a cliche that only happens in Hollywood movies, saying it was time to cure me of my cliches. With that, his mouth opened wide and revealed a large, bright eye, now gasping for air as his body began to deform. I told Ada to get clear as four large parasectic legs now held Saddler's body up, an eye on a joint of each leg with a single eye on the end of a tentacle staring down at me....(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15oJvCw37Ec&feature=related for a transformation visual. Another dude's boss fight follows, but I'm still gonna narrate here).

In my experience, if you shoot something in the eye, it will hurt, regardless of the location of said eye. A shot to one of it's leg eyes was enough to bring him to his knees. With no better ideas, I ran to his back, jumped aboard and gave his tentacle eye a quick jab. Seems he didn't care much for that and threw me off before I could get another stab in. I tried to repeat the shot, but he didn't let up after a second charge. For lack of a better option, I noticed one of those red barrels that I used back during the fight with the village chief. It worked before and it worked again. One explosion and one eye stab later, he's down again and I'm looking for other alternatives. I will say this: for an overgrown bug, he sure could throw to save his life. He could toss a support girder clear across the platform without loss for momentum. It's almost ironic that he would be suggesting another method of attack. With the platform still under construction, cranes carrying girders were still ready and waiting. I've never actually read the manual for these things, but when you just want to swing em' wildly at something, they operation pretty much works itself out. With a little careful timing and a flip of the swtich, we get a nice steel burrito slamming into the side of Spiderman.

Another stab or two in the eye later and...well, he's not giving up. If things kept going, he'd pin me down or mow me over with something sooner or later....good thing Ada was around again. In a repeat from six years ago, she tossed me a rocket launcher to put down another big ugly monster....in any case, he didn't know it was coming until the rocket was on him. As it crashed into him and tore him into pieces, all I could think of was "This is payback for Mike!"...at least it was all I could think of until I saw it...the vaccine Luis lost earlier. I picked it up with thoughts of Mission Complete in my head...

....that's when I heard it. Ada had drawn her gun and it was trained right on the back of my head. She asked for the sample, knowing full well what it was and what could be done with it. Much as I hated to give it up, my mission was Ashley's safety. That in mind, I had no choice but to hand it over....I could at least tell Refield later. Sample in hand, Ada ran to the edge of the platform and jumped...she came up in another chopper, telling me the island would blow in three minutes....I don't know why she does the things she does, but she tossed me a key to a jetski at the harbor with a little stuffed bear charm attached.....cute, Ada...real cute.

I didn't have much time for words with Ashley, save a quick warning that the island was gonna blow in a matter of minutes. The jetski was a quick ride out of the tunnels beneathe the island....I don't remember much about that part...all I remember is the faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel leading out into open waters...and Ashley falling off the back of the ski as soon as we hit the ocean. She was alright...we were out of enemy hands....finally....as transmission to Hunnigan came back online, I was finally able to report the mission as complete. She must've been up all night waiting for the transmission to come back on. She hadn't changed, but her glasses were off. I asked for her number, but she quickly reminded me that I was still on duty.

...story of my life.

PERSPECTIVE SWAP

Leon Scott Kennedy finishes his mission....unknown to him, Ada Wong sends a fake culture of the master sample to Albert Wesker, throwing a wrench in whatever plans he had going and effectively backstabbing him after working with him since the Raccoon City Incident. The big problem is what will happen to the real sample now...with samples of the T-Virus and Plagas Parasite...who knows what sort of twisted Tyrant the future could bring about?

"Ah yes, there is one thing I forgot...the human race has not yet been eliminated. Travel North....hope is such a splendid thing." - Celeb Goldman, House of the Dead 4

Step Twenty Two: Bust of the South - Janicon Shots

2007-11-09T01:00:10Z

Due to extenuating circumstances that came up yesterday, I've fallen a little behind in my shot returns for Janicon. I'm pretty sure people don't have high expectations of this little operation of mine, given the hardware and lack of cost. Still, I like to think I can get everything out in a week with the same attention to each shot and e-mail. I usually don't post these until I'm done with the sendings...well, I won't tell if you won't. ^_^

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v243/Guilliam/Janicon%202007/

This is everything requested via e-mail links, plus a few previous customers I had on file. There would be a bit more concerning a pagent towards the end of Sunday, but I forgot just how bad my camera is in dimly lit environments. A real camera....one of these days! Anyways, the costumes! Plenty of good stuff in there to look at! Enjoy!

Step Twenty One: Blackjack of the North - Janicon Report

2007-11-05T03:28:11Z

Janicon was my last hurrah this year, and it was interesting to see it develop online and play out as things...well...happened. The Jacksonville Wyndham was the site for this first year conventions, and I'd heard a few rumors about it long before the opening ceremonies. To make a long story short (we'll get back to long stories when I polish off my little Resident Evil dealy), lack of a former presence was made up for with an experienced staff. How'd they stack up? Let's take a little look see....

The hotel itself was a bit of a double edged sword. Unlike the Orlando Wyndham, the Jacksonville branch does not come with it's own convention center. I believe the staff expected much less of a turnout than actually showed. Crowded halls were a constant problem throughout Friday and Saturday, with traffic almost literally being bumper to bumper. On one hand, this put a number of shots on an opportunity basis, but it does prove one thing: the staff knew what they were doing. They found a good setting, they secured good guests and put up all the events that bring the crowds in for amusement (The opening ceremonies were especially amusing). They may want to consider moving to a larger setting next year, as they certainly have the credibility based on their display this year.

I'm missing a few pieces since I had to leave early today, but the story of the con originally led us to believe that there would be a sort of Alice in Wonderland theme to the events...they led us to believe that, but then Lucca Ashtear came in speaking techno babble about how she and another Alice somehow ended up...uh...here? To clear up some of this confusion, the Acme Detective Agency came in to warn the staff that the con was suspected to become the victim of a network takeover, effectively putting the weekend in the hands of another entity. They scoffed at the Lead Agent's claims until Carmen Sandiego came in with Albert Wesker (w/Umbrella Agent) at her side to begin their takeover. Of course, these two are just thieves. When in came right down to it, they needed somebody EVIL to fill in the gaps, which of course meant Kefka Palazzo would be the next to stand at their side. The mighty jester requested a reminder as to why he was providing his services to Carmen when she revealed she had something called a Chorno Skimmer which would allow him to travel in time. His goal? Go back in time and kill Sephiroth's creators so he'd resume his rightful role as the pinacle Square villain. For the meantime, he called Ifrit in to supplement the villain ranks (and treated it like a cute little pet to boot) with Harley Quinn following in, and in The Joker's abscence, turned to supporting Mr.K for the festivities. Furthermore, Gannondorf arrived to help fill in the ranks, but walked off in tears after being called a "pathetic emo loser" by Kefka and suffering a slightly less than epic loss against Link. At this point, we've got a fair sum of heroes and villains standing on the stage (The Acme Agency ammounts to quite a few agents), but the good guys are still outnumbered...until Waldo (As in "Where's") walks in. Carmen is scared out of her mind, because Waldo's been actively stalking her. When several disturbing details about his activity comes to light, even Kefka gets freaked out by this guy....and at some point, Carmen got over it. Using the Chrono Skimmer, she turned her attention to convincing Japan not to trade with America (No stateside manga....AAUUUUGH!) and using her control over the con to make it more about Japanese history (and there were some panels pertaining to such culture), To keep this short (and for the fact that I couldn't be at closing ceremonies), the goal was apparently to overturn the effects of the Chrono Skimmer in some sort of event...but I don't know what became of it, since it didn't seem to go off at the specified time the following day...maybe it fell behind schedule, or maybe I just missed it. In any event, I'm not quite sure what happened.

I should also note that this guy doing Kefka was awesome, placing himself into character and being amusingly evil at all the right times. One of his finer moments was addressing a Vincent Valentine cosplayer and saying "Hey Vincent, guess what? Your girlfriend's still DEAD! HEEE HEE HEE HEE! Yes, yes! I know because I played that awful game you were in!". Much laughter, even from the cosplayer in question, followed (and while Vincent is pretty cool, Dirge of Cerberus did suck pretty badly). He even did a promo for a local radio station broadcasting from the con to give them publicity, denounce Sephiroth once more, and to put icing on the cake, did the Kefka whooping laugh SO well...hoo man, that guy just freaking wins for being in character.

As far as photography goes, I remade the sheets once again and took down names as per usual. There was no shortage of good costumes to get pictures of. Faces I'd seen from Tampa to two different points in Orlando were all over the place sporting everything from simple and sharp to elegant and extravagant. My shots are currently being processed and I'll be able to start distribution tomorrow evening (I'll link as soon as everybody gets their stuff). In all, I got 99 shots at this con...yep. 99. The missing shot? Well, we're going on a little side trip now....

About a month earlier, somebody I met at AFO was in need of a lift to something called Ancient City Con, which just happens to be somewhere in St. Augustine (don't let the technical details fool you: It's really out in the middle of NOWHERE!). ACC was also a first year job, but it was a pretty small affair built more closely to tabletop gaming with anime, video games and such taking a back seat. There wasn't much of a turnout, but everybody seemed to have a good time, but it was because of that turnout that I didn't take any pictures....save one. I was wearing my Phoenix Wright t-shirt (the one that parodies the iPod with the iObject theme) and a Bleach cosplayer takes notice. She falls in love with the shirt at first sight, nearly pinches my nipples off grabbing it and proceeds to ask where I got it and where she could get one (AFO and I don't know). Following the interrogation, I'm still being held at, for lack of a better term, fingernail point for desire of the shirt (and I'm not staying overnight. I got no other clothes to wear!). Only one thing could break her grip...you guessed it. "Mind if I take a shot?". The request that gives me the best mementoes of a con was used that day for the sake of my nippular region.

Back to the Janicon news. The website advertised a DDR Tournament...this too, much to my dismay, was cancelled! It wasn't even on the tourney roster at the desk...narts. Anyways, there were two of the soft pads set up with a copy of SuperNova ready to roll for free play, but that didn't last too long. I decided a little free play would be better than none at all, so I stepped in, tossed my sneakers off and took to Doll (Terra) on Expert mode. This is one of my best songs...but the carpet had other plans. Those dance pads slipped around so badly, it reminded me of when I was learning to roller skate as a kid. Lots of slippin' and slidin' around, but not quite able to fall on one's ass. The pads were used for the remainder of the day, but removed for reasons unknown (safety, most likely).

Despite all that Janicon could overcome, there is one element they suffered at the hands of: once again, the hotel came back to bite them in the ass. The convention itself, aside from the dealers room, offered a few other odds and ends to sell, like pocky, bottles of water, and some of this caffeinergy drink called "Game Juice". They sold these at fairly cheap prices, and I think that's what irked the hotel. They set up their own little lunch deal for the conventioneers in one of the side rooms, and when they learned they could make a little more money, they forced the staff to stop selling off the water and Game Juice. This way, they could sell off their lunch wares without competition (at inflated prices...three bucks for a can of soda? What the hell?). In spite of this, the con found a way to strike back. They could not sell, but yes, they did in fact GIVE away some of their drink stock. I'm not sure how long that ran, but they gave me a free bottle with that explanation when I tried to buy one.

In the end, I can see Janicon itself having a future, but in all odds, it'll probably be somewhere else next time. It was a great time to be had by all, the staff and cast were a fun bunch, the guests were cool about everything, and the panels/events were clever and amusing. Definately worth looking into again next year.

...learned a lot this year, hands on and ears open....alrighty, Mister Methodical. You've got the plans...come the end of these shot returns, time to put em to work....but those won't be ready until tomorrow, so I'mma get some shuteye now.

Side Step Twenty Six: So close, yet so far (LSK-004)

2007-10-21T23:50:55Z

The ability to fight is often what separates your standard third person shooter from a survival horror game. In the shooter side of the spectrum, you're more likely than not to have some means of fighting back your opponent (ammo is available in abundance in games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark).Survival horror puts more emphasis on survival than combat, often giving us normal people with whatever they can find to live by, fleeing combat whenever possible and fighting only when absolutely necessary. What happens when our ability to fight is thrown into jeopardy? It can get pretty nasty...

PERSPECTIVE SWAP

Salazar's tactics seemed to contradict the goals of Los Illuminados as we continued to move through the castle. While he still had the zealots pursue Ashley whenever possible, he didn't give a second thought to using traps (such as the old spikes-on-a-descending-ceiling trick) that could have just as easily killed her too. Maybe he put more faith in my abilities than he'd like to admit...anyways, we managed to locate all the pieces of the door he went hiding behind earlier (all the stone pieces fit in to make a Chimera of Lion, Goat and Serpent), revealing a coffin-motif railcar. It took us to the rear galleries of the castle amidst the earliest morning skies. The midnight black was beginning to subside with the earliest colors of navy blue. Morning would be here in about six hours...could we last that much longer? Even if we do, where exactly are we going here?

At the very least, that question wouldn't apply to Ashley much longer. As we passed through one of the towers just off the hedgemaze, one of those bugs (Novistador) grabbed her from behind. I'd have done something, but apparently they can fly now...not invisible, but now a whole bunch of them are gathering round to finish off the lowly bodyguard left behind....after a quick discussion with my shotgun, they decided to let me pass (they seem to go down a lot quicker when they're in the air).

I still stand by what I said about Salazar being a rejected Batman villain. He even waited for me in his chambers just beyond the Clock Tower*...almost like he was waiting for me...dammit, can I EVER be wrong about something? As soon as I walked in, the runt pressed a button on his throne to make the floor beneathe me open up....trap door...how many cliches does this pile of bricks have? While the academy didn't teach lockpicking, they DID tell us how to use these neat little grappling hooks for situations like this. As I came to a stop above some pretty dangerous looking rock spires, I saw a little bronze hole...and the radio let loose with "Hmmmm? Where's the satisfying sound of one's impalement?"...he wanted to hear me as I hit the bottom...with one free hand, I took my handgun out and took a little shot at the hole, soon getting the satisfying sound of somebody yelping with an amplified gunshot in their ear. Gave me a laugh, but he didn't appreciate that at all, saying he'd send his "right hand" to get me. I think the clencher though is when he lost his composure and screamed "DIE YOU WORM!".

I'd fallen into the lowest reaches of the sewers. An old service elevator looked pretty promising, but the power was out. Some rusty signs pointed the way to the generator room, but something seemed off...I heard something clattering around above and below me...something growling...and it was at about this time that a long, tail-like extension came out of the ceiling, trying to slash into me with it's knife-ish tip. Slash and slash again, it didn't seem happy that I was down here. Somewhere along the line, it almost got me, but just managing to knock me into an old tank labeled N20...liquid nitrogen? Down here? What for?

Eventually, I made it to the generator and reset the circuit to the elevator. It would be about four minutes until it made it back up...question is, just where would I be going down to? Still, there's only one thing that could be worse than being down here with that tail thing, and as life likes to take every little shot at me, said thing came up. As I made my way out of the generator room, the rest of the tail decided to quit screwing around...

Plaga Research Byproduct and Salazar's Right Hand: Verdugo (Executioner)

It's aggression was beyond anything from Racoon City...it came at me with unrelenting slashes from tail and claw alike. As with any creature, I opened fire to look for a weakness, but I immediately noticed a bit of a problem: my bullets were actually reflecting off the surface of it's armor...handgun, shotgun, magnum, nothing could get through it's skin...grenades just made it flinch for shock of the initial blast, but it kept coming...at times like this, we have to grit our teeth, lock n' load....and run like hell. As soon as the safety released on the shutters of the generator room (which had locked me in with this thing for a while), I ran for the elevator. There was nothing I could do...except the rocket launcher I'd found in one of the display cases earlier. It MIGHT be able to take that thing down, but what if it can't? I'd be running the chance of knocking it out, but there's also the possibility it'll just get pissed off (and I might wanna use this on something that it might work on later)...that's when I saw it...the Liquid Nitrogen tank in front of me and that thing closing in behind me. It's all or nothing with a game of kick the can...as I ran by it, I threw my body into a kick and sent it crashing into the ground, spraying an icy mist all over my entertainer...and while his skin is a nice light blue, he's STILL coming towards me, albeit much slower than before....are these things invincible? Only one way to find out...knowing that this would be as good as it got, I swung the rocket launcher over my shoulder after putting some distance between us, took aim and let im' have it. As the rocket burst against it, it's entire body shattered..flying across the room in a fine diamond dust, creating a mist as it's final pieces hit the ground.

...hasta luego, bastardo.

When the elevator FINALLY came up, it took me through a series of underground passages leading to a residence and tower behind the castle. Wouldn't you know that Salazar was waiting at the top...he even had barrels to fall down the stairs as a means of defense...I came here to save the president's daughter, not play live action Donkey Kong. Just the same, by the time I reached the top, he'd already sent Ashley off to an old military base on an island just off the coast. In a stunning turn of events, Salazar finally decided to make a stand, allowing himself and his other bodyguard (thank god...I don't wanna fight another one of these) to be merged into a giant plant covering the exit.

To make a long story short, you'd be surprised how quickly incendiary grenades make work of plantlife. Greenpeace can have a hissy fit some other time.**

The lower levels of the tower housed a dock and a boat. As I came to the waters edge, I found Ada already in the drivers seat. "Need a ride, handsome?" she mocked...what can I say? I trust her to some extent and I'd rather not swim after what happened back at the lake. The sky was getting brighter, with the moon no longer visible. It would still be another two hours until the sun rose. Until then, the plaga can still manifest themselves freely for lack of light exposure. As we pulled aside the lower cliffs of the island, Ada took to her grappling hook and left the boat to me...I guess she had business here too, but a little heads up would've been nice.

The island was riddled with small encampents surrounding a large research facility. The Ganados around here were all old military, complete with tactical gear and all the bells and whistles the zealots were carrying (plus those little shockey stun batons...jeez, that smarts...). I'd have had a rough time of it if they didn't move so slowly among tight quarters. Made ambushing them so much easier...still, can't make it that easy.

It happened when I made it to the main research facility. Despite all the screaming soldiers I fought through to get in here, it was quiet...eerie. It reminded me of Umbrella's lab beneathe the Racoon City Police Department in that it was abandoned, filthy and had this feel about it...like something was watching you, but nothing was around. I found an old surgery room...it looked like it had been used recently. There was even a body on the table in one room that appeared to have been left in mid-autopsy. It was a tall body of mostly human form, sans any anatomical "properties", liquid paper white skin, vague blue veins scattered about it's body, and that smile...a big yellow toothy grin plastered across it's face...it was about as creepy as those Lickers***, save for the fact that it seemed to be dead. In the next room, I found a keycard to other regions in the lab, as well as another memo by Luis. Attached to this one were pictures of the creature I'd seen in the previous room. The note called it a Regenerator (Translation Not Found @_@), noted for a superior metabolism that allowed it to regenerate lost sections of it's body almost instantaneously. It went on to say that this was the true goal of the surgical experiments with Las Plagas, with all the other creatures being incidental byproducts. It was practically immune to all forms of attack, with only one surefire way of killing it: several plaga parasites are placed in it's body to maintain it's cold, dead husk as well as provide multiple controllers to keep it alive if one falls. Luis made mention of an infrared scope that was meant to pinpoint the location of the parasites, cap them each and ultimately destroy the creature...it was at about this time that I heard something clatter in the other room...and a deep, sadistic cackle, like something that belonged in a straight jacket began to get slightly louder. I took point near the surgery bed, ready to make a stand when it walked in....

Ultimate Fusion of Human and Plaga - Regenerator

For a brief second, I froze. That thing on the table in the next room was standing right in front of me, slowly lumbering near as it let out it's maniacal, stuttering snickers. With no means of seeing the plaga inside it, I decided to retreat for now, using a shotgun blast to blow it's legs out. Unfortunately, Luis forgot to mention that these things can stretch their arms to at least twice their base length. As I tried to run past, he grabbed me around the neck, pulled his torso up to mine and sunk his teeth into my right shoulder. Wincing in pain, I threw his legless remains to the ground and fired upon whatever I could see with my shotgun. If I can't see the bugs, I'll just blast away until there's nothing left! Leg...arm....neck...chest....I didn't care. Something would have to give and damned if I'm gonna keel over after coming this far...still, it was something to see him in action, spawning his body just as quick as I burst it...then it happened. After a while, he started to wiggle...then he kind of bloated up...then he burst into pieces until only his regenerated legs were left lying where they fell...guess I got lucky this time...but how many more were there?

PERSPECTIVE SWAP

In their goal to take control of the US, Los Illuminados developed many special weapons to enhance their military capability when they siezed power. In addition to the Regenerators and Verdugos, the plagas themselves are deadly enough...to control powerful US soldiers with the parasites would give them quite the edge in trying to put down a nation that Saddler believes is too big headed with it's own power. When it comes down to it, he's just another terrorist with a "holier than thou" attitude disorder, but he's got the ability to take down entire nations just by releasing plaga spores within'...the natural disorder would generate more than enough chaos to put any government in shambles, but Saddler has decided to do things in the traditional needlessly complicated villain style. Ada's still moving around and somebody else seems to be involved...

* = Be Warned: This game was the scariest thing to release on the SNES, moreso than Barney's Hide N' Seek (a game where the goal is to use a large dinosaur to hunt down small children).

** = Honestly, this battle is more dull than anything. I bought a rocket launcher from the merchant to speed things along, and I REALLY wanted to kill this guy now that he finally made a stand. On a side note, I've cut a lot of other stuff to keep this as plot relevant as possible.

*** = Licker - T-Virus mutant variant. A zombie treated further with the virus. It loses it's eyes, exposes it's cerebral region, gains two scythe-like claws and a long, sharp, piercing tongue. Thought to be a byproduct of V-ACT (Crimson Head****) research.

**** = V-ACT (Crimson Head) When a zombie is killed, the T-Virus continues to mutate and reshape the host body. If time passes enough, the body can reanimate itself once more as the Crimson Head. Notably different from a zombie by it's sharp claws, blood red skin, increased aggression, durability, and sharp cries in battle. A zombie will not revive in this manner if decapitated or immolated upon being killed the first time (Appears in Gamecube RE1 Only...thank god).

Side Step Twenty Five: Sing once again with me, our strange duet! (LSK-003)

2007-10-20T05:11:01Z

The feel of Castle Salazar gives me that vibe...and I can't get that song outta my head.

(PERSPECTIVE SWAP)

A castle in the middle of the night wouldn't be my first choice to duck and hide in, but when pitchforks, scythes, knives and every other sharp farm tool are on your tail, you really can't be picky. Unfortunately, we left behind the Spanish cries of death and swapped em' off for erie chants, getting creepier as they inch closer...louder...I could only describe it as a stuttering Darth Vader breath, leaving me with nothing but a guess until those hooded freaks finally got in close. The Zealots of Los Illuminados had taken up residence in the castle, and they were dug in pretty deep, oldschool weapons (maces, spiked shields, crossbows, much better than the Ganados), plus catapults covering the courtyard (In a moment of surprise, a fallback from a catapult round knocked me over and under Ashley's skirt. She knew what I was going through for her....she didn't have to call me a pervert!*). To make matters worse, my regular contact with Hunnigan got cut...I think I went over my minutes.

Luis caught up to us before we could enter the main foyer. He told us he found what he'd forgotten earlier...but he'd dropped it fleeing the zealots. He left us abruptly to go recover the medicine...pills to stop the convulsions Ashley and I had been having by supressing the parasite growth. He only told us that he's helping us because it "made him feel better". Still, even with him gone, we wouldn't be without a new host earlier....the moment we entered the foyer, we were greeted with a horrible, high pitched cackle. Looking up to the balcony overlooking the room, we noticed a man, around four feet tall dressed in Napoleonic garb, bright yellow eyes with an old man's complexion. Two towering robed...things stood guard beside him as he introduced himself.

"I was wondering when you'd notice us....me llamo Ramon Salazar."

He immediately made it clear that Ashley was his objective and that my life was worth nothing to him. Deciding to leave us to the inhabitants of the castle, he sealed off the only path open to following him with some stone tablet with shallow recessions...why can't castles like this have normal architects who make doors with doorknobs?

It's not just the doorknobs either. This guy had horse statues breathing fire through their noses in the middle of his hallway. I'd have sooner found a hose, but for lack of time, this just meant finding the off switch, which just happened to be in a jail of some sort just off the hall. It was kind of dank...pretty dark...and oddly echo-ey. I found the switch in a cell, but before I entered, I noticed the occupant of the cell. He was a tall, tough looking guy, chains holding his well muscled build to the wall, but the most interesting feature? His eyelids were sewn shut...needle and thread, flesh and blood, keeping his vision obscured. I figure this guy doesn't pose much threat, even if he does look so dangerous...but then I went into his cell, hoping to hit the switch...then all hell broke loose, and by hell I mean him....

Garrador (Slang for "Man with Claws)

He broke free from his chains like they were nothing, extended claws from his hand like that one mutant in those comic book movies and actually began RUNNING at me and swinging wildly! Figuring he was just lucky, I ran from him and turned to take a few shots, only to see him running RIGHT AT ME! His eyes were closed tighter than a chastity belt in a catholic school...is he hearing me out? I decided to test the theory by walking away....he seemed a bit confused, wandering around and retracting his claws. In another moment of genius, I decided to fire a random shot at him from across the room. As expected, he heard (and probably felt) the shot, immediately charging at me. At the last second, I lept out of the way, leaving him to attack the wall, and I don't know how sharp those claws are, but they actually got lodged into the wall...that was my chance. I took some shots at his back, and it turned out to be his weakness when a big ol' tentacle plaga popped out. A couple of shotgun shells didn't finish him, and I didn't think he'd fall for it again...but there were some out of place bells in the dungeon...will he fall for the same trick if I shoot at these?

Yes. Long story short, they don't live long when that bug explodes.

Several crank turning rigs (which I actually had to cover Ashley for...poor kid. Having to put up with me throwing bullets all around her with all that creepy chanting as those freaks try to carry her off) and ambushes later, we finally found a room to catch a breather in. Ashley started coughing up blood again, but got a little tempermental when I tried to ask if she was okay. She ran away and fell back against a wall with some weird holes in em'....which promptly flung out some big metal straps around her and turned the wall around like in some bad horror movie. Almost as if on cue, the transmission came back. I thought Hunnigan had the line back up and running, but it turns out that pipsqueak Salazar had hijacked the line, deciding to torment me a little every time something happened. For now, he just wanted to mention that he'd let his "miserable insects" into the sewers for some exercise. With the only other door out of the room locked, there was only one way to go...

The sewers were nothing you wouldn't expect. Dark tunnels with a little water and a lot of stink. What kind of insects could be more offensive than the odor here? Well, unlike all the answers I wanted, this one came quickly. A grate cover ahead of me fell, accompanied by the pitter-patter of little feet across the floor....problem: I didn't see anything....I moved further, but with caution...I heard rumors about what happened during the Arklay Mountains incident. Not being alert will result in bad things happening. As I moved down, something curious happened...the laser sight on my gun got a little brighter...when I looked closer, I noticed some sort of liquid...dripping out of nowhere onto the floor....I don't care what kind of architect you have, you can NOT make that happen. I took a potshot and SOMETHING appeared out of nowhere, shrieking in pain.

Novistador (No Sighter)

There's nothing complicated about what happened next. I shot it until it stopped moving....but I heard more up ahead, making a noise somewhere between a growl and a hiss. It was an interesting and freaky exercise moving around the sewers...they can make themselves invisible, probably through refracted light or some techincal junk like that...but they needed to become visible when they made an attack, so maybe it has to do with mass muscle contractions...in any case, that was only one of their abilities. One of them grabbed me with all fours and spit something on me...not sure what it was, but it sorta burned when it splashed on me...put a hole in my favorite shirt too.

To cut a long story short, there was nothing of value in the sewers, but it did bring me a little further into the galleries of Salazar's castle...according to some memos, he's the eigth keeper of the castle (and despite his appearance, only 20 years old). The first Castellan sealed las plagas underneathe the castle so Los Illuminados couldn't abuse their power. Somehow, Ramon became a follower of their cult and allowed them to (use the villagers to) excavate las plagas from their prison. He did this to "attone for the sins" of his ancestors and get on Saddler's good side....he's likely infected too (Side note: He also appears to be a collector of fine arms. I decided to confiscate a rocket launcher I found just lying around in a glass case. I'm sure I can put it to better use that he could).

And while he has some fine and morbid tastes, I don't think anything embodies the contradicting natures of said tastes than his hedge maze. He even saw fit to call me again and say I'd make good food for his "cute pets", hinting at the impending danger...fruity clothes and telling me all his evil intentions in advance...rejected Batman villain if I've ever seen one. In any case, it figures he'd have a bunch of those wolves running around his garden...just the thing to guard both halves of the key to the master bedroom. Reminds me of those old training structures back at the academy...rounding a corner, a quick blast of the gun to put down an enemy...lather, rinse, repeat...except they didn't quite have tentacle backed dogs in mind when they gave us said training...

The master bedroom was quiet...too quiet...so quiet, I didn't even hear her point her gun to the back of my head. A woman ordered me to put my firearm down, and I don't think she expected me to sieze her gun first...or maybe she did...afterall, she DID knock it back in the air and do one of those showy little flips as she tried to recover it. As I took my knife out and moved in to secure her, that red dress gave her away...this was the woman who'd saved my skin from Chief Mendez earlier...too bad she chose to go for the gun. I was ready to take her down a lot sooner than she'd have been ready to point the gun properly. When I disarmed her, she took her glasses off...told me it had "been a while"...took a second, but the red dress and skills she displayed could only make her one person...Ada Wong...I guess the rumors about her working with Wesker are true.

<History Lesson (Resident Evil 2): Raccoon City broke out with the T-Virus** six years prior to the events of RE4. Leon Kennedy was just ordered to his first day of service in the city, at which time, most citizens were already infected and zombified. Working with Claire Redfield to seek out her brother as well as assist survivors, Leon met up with Ada Wong, claiming to be looking for her boyfriend (dead two months earlier), but actually seeking a sample of the G-Virus***. While she appears to die after being shot by Annette Birkin, Albert Wesker saves her life and they begin a working partnership of sorts>

She didn't give me long to talk. She used some fancy flash grenade built into her glasses to cover a quick escape...if it weren't for all that grief in Raccoon City, this could've turned out badly...who knows? Maybe she likes me. I just hope neither of us has to shoot the other when this is all over.

Moving on, I ran into Luis again. As he was about to give me the anti-plaga medicine, he sort of flinched in a weird way...next thing I knew he was skewered through the chest by what I could only describe as a giant scorpion tail. As it threw him to the ground, Luis dropped a small case with a purple liquid inside. When the tail withdrew, it was replaced with Saddler's**** hand catching the case and leaving with the guarentee that Salazar would take care of us. As Luis lay dying, he confessed that he was a researcher for Saddler, desperately trying to undo all the damage he'd done by researching Las Plagas. He told me that the case he dropped was "the sample", something of a mother parasite specimen. Whatever it's for, he told me to get it back at any cost as he passed out for good...I know I didn't know the guy all that well, but we fought side-by-side in that crappy little cabin on the village outskirts...they'll pay for this.

Coincidentally, Ashley was in the same room...just on the first story with no stairs leading down. There was no ideal place to jump down to release her, so I had to take shots at her restraints with my handgun to get her out. She may not have appreciated it then, but she'll look back on this one day and laugh...or maybe scratch my eyes out. In any case, some zealots heard my gunfire and tried to sieze her. I don't know why one of them decided to bring the key to the room with him, but she made for the door as soon as I dropped their ringleader and let loose with the key....then all I could do was wait...I heard that freaky little Vader chant, a little crashing, and a scream here and there...I couldn't follow...what the hell was going on in there? I don't know, but a little while later, Ashley made her way through one of the locked doors near my sniping point. With the objective back in tow, it was time to leave...question is, what wonderfully fucked up room do I go into now?

(PERSPECTIVE SWAP)

For at least eight generations, Las Plagas were confined underneathe the castle. A memo from Luis explained that while they could not survive without a host organism (as all good parasites won't), they survived within' their own fossils on the molecular level as spores. Villagers excavating the fossils breathed in the spores and spread them around upon their return to the village. Years later, the parasites revived and Los Ganados were born, now violent savages (incidentally, the children of the village were too young to take the strain put on their bodies by the parasites...on some level, I feel better that I don't have to...y'know).

* = Swear to god, this happened

** = T-Virus - The virus which Umbrella Pharmecuticals created as a means of creating the ultimate bio-weapon (T-002 Tyrant). Statistically, only one in one million people could become a Tyrant. The rest would become "normal" zombies. Many different T-Virus effects are registered, also among plants and animals. Broke out in Raccoon City by rats acting as carriers in the sewers.

*** = G-Virus - Special virus developed by William Birkin. While the T-Virus can only create mutations slightly within' the parameters of the basic host, the G-Virus can create radical mutations that greatly vary from the host's original composition. Umbrella tried to murder Birkin when the T-Virus outbreak occured and steal his samples so he wouldn't talk. Injected himself with the virus as he lay dying and became the nightmarish "G" boss throughout the game. At the very least, one sample left the site in the hands of Umbrella's Agent Hunk.

**** - I kinda wondered what these guys wore under those robes...guess this rules out pantyhose.

Side Step Twenty Four: This way, stranjah! (LSK-002)

2007-10-16T00:21:08Z

One of the interesting changes which reduces the fear factor in RE4 is the use of the attache case system. In previous games, a character was given anywhere from 6 to 10 slots for all items (weapons, ammo, healing items, keys, key items, etc depending on game and character). The attache case uses a grid to store all combat related items while key items get a unique inventory for itself, allowing immediate focus to munitions and the battle at hand, but it gets a bit questionable...I can see myself fitting a magnum revolver and pistol in there...maybe a compact shotgun, but the rifle is pushing it....don't even ask me how the rocket launcher fits in there (I'd just say with great difficulty). I will just close by saying this: it's a lot safer than making like Guybrush Threepwood and just tossing every random item you pick up in your pants (gets mighty dangerous in there).

PERSPECTIVE SWAP!

I awoke to find I'd been coughing up blood...apparently, I've come down with a bug, but my checkup was limited to new knowledge from Hunnigan. The kidnappers are a cult...the Los Illuminados (The Illuminated Ones...enlightenment, I guess?). They're likely behind the activity of the villagers, but what's the incentive for them to assist them?

Leaving the safety (and I use that term loosely) of the cabin, I looked around...it was night...it was raining....torches were somehow still lit...but the greatest curiosity came when I moved down the path to the waterfall. A villager drew near.I readied myself for combat...however, his neck was contorting in pretty odd manner...a few seconds later, his head explodes, but there's a problem....I haven't DONE anything yet. That's when I saw it for the first time. A fleshy tentacle like creature sprouted from his neck, a scythe-like blade at the end of it's long, sinewy tendril....okay, I'm no expert on Spanish anatomy, but I'm pretty sure their heads don't spontaneously explode into these...things. Gunfire no longer had any effect on the body, but it seemed to violently react when I fired on the creature. It fell relatively quickly when I shot it directly, but it wasn't the only one...as I made my way to the waterfall, a villager would occasionally spawn a growth from it's head...are these things behind their odd behavior?

Some careful gunfights brought me to the base of the waterfall. An intricate series of cranes and waterwheels controlled the flow of water over the cave in the rear of the falls. While I was busy manipulating the devices, a crowd of villagers managed to corner me before I could enter the cavern. Unfortunately, they were a bit more than I was ready to fight. My shotgun had been taxed in previous battles, and ammo ran out before I could knock enough of them back...what's worse, they were sprouting those things from their necks. Time was short, and in a moment of haste, I threw a flash grenade to hold them back while I reloaded, only to discover something unusual...when the flash ignited, all of the "growths" burst into nothing! Whatever they are, they don't seem too keen on being flashed.

The falls not only housed a key to the church, but also an underground river traversing the swamps I had to cross to find the lake. Unfortunately, Los Illuminados figured me out...they used the villagers to stage an ambush at a clearing just on the outskirts of the lake. Knowing the locals were no longer a match for me, they decided to use the big guns. It took many villagers to close the gates and pull it out of hiding, but they eventually pulled El Gigante (The Giant) to succeed where they had failed. It was at least twelve feet tall, massive muscles on all appendages and an attitude problem that knew no boundaries. It only turned it's attention on me after it finished stomping and throwing it's captors around. As intimidating as it was, it was still flesh and bone, or at least something along those lines. Gunfire only had the effect of bringing it down to it's knees for a moment, but in that moment, one of those odd growths sprouted from it's back. It was a weakness on the villagers...maybe it applies here! I ran to it's back, jumped to the growth and began cutting away with my knife. It began to shriek in pain, each cut making it angrier as I hacked away at the creature. Sadly, that anger only made it more infuriated with me. It tossed me into a corner...there was no room to move...is this it?

HOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLL!

A wolf's cry broke out from a nearby cliffside, distracting the behemoth and drawing his attention from me. Before I resumed combat, I noticed something...this dog...his hind leg has blood on it. It's the wolf I released from the bear trap just outside the village! Apparently, wolves believe in karma, and payback became quite a bitch here. For whatever reason, the giant saw fit to attack the smaller target, allowing me to go about my attach with little interferance. It didn't take long to get him on the ground again and finish the job....all thanks to that little act of kindness preceeding the madness. Take care, pup...

Of course, not all species believe in making nice. My return to the church found me face to face with the Comillos (The Fang), wolves with the same growths as the villagers. Slaying three of them was enough to make me rush the church in a feel of relative fearlessness...having to deal with agile creatures like that in a wide, open, very dark area brought little thought of danger to a slow moving member of the Ganados. For some reason or other though, the church was empty, save the storage room where I finally located Ashley....apparently, we've never met before. She threw a pipe at me before I was able to get an introduction in order. Pleasantries had to be left at that for now, since the mission is only over once I get her out of this hell hole. However, this is where things get interesting...on our way out, the head of Los Illuminados finally made himself known...

Osmund Saddler, the high priest of Los Illuminados, made a bold stand with two guards at his side. He finally revealed to us the basic idea of his plan...kidnap the President's daughter, grant her "their power" and return her to the US...they want to infect the President with the same parasite that's in her...Saddler has the ability to manipulate anybody under the influence of the parasites....Las Plagas (The Plague). Even when I confronted him, he didn't seem too worried...he even told me why....when Chief Mendez put me under, they put one into ME. Even so, he decided to take no chances and ordered his guards to stop us. While we managed to escape through a window in the storage room, the entire village would now be on us....Ashley was the key to their entire plan. Now it was a race. Either I get to the rendevous point and the rescue chopper or they retake Ashley. Either way, the last leg of the trip was officially underway. The trip to the point wasn't going to be a walk in the park, taking us right through the village and the barnyard again, now swarming with villagers.

As we made it to the outskirts of the town, we found ourselves being chased...surrounded. Torch wielding villagers were almost upon us when we found a cabin to take refuge in. Fortunately, we also found Luis inside, ready to take up arms with me while Ashley went into hiding. Back to back, Luis and I barracaded the windows with whatever we could before the Ganados were on us. When the furniture took all it could, it was effectively a free for all...souless bodies pouring in the windows, axes smashing through all wood as it mised it's mark, bodies burning in the blast of incendiary grenades, all as we tried to hold our ground...eventually, we were overwhelmed and moved to secure the second floor. Fortunately, we were able to push them back more easily here, myself holding the stairs while Luis gunned down those coming in from the ladders...aside from the cries of plagas and villagers falling, I don't remember much about that battle....I guess we won, though Hunnigan would soon after tell me that they'd won on another front by somehow shooting down one of our rescue choppers.

Mendez eventually signalled a retreat. Despite his imposing appearance, and perhaps even his infection by these parasites, he seems to care about his people to some extent. It's a crying shame that the feelings didn't extend to me when I ran into him one last time in a storage shed at the furthest reaches of their mining operations. When he made his move, I was ready this time. I fired on an old can of gas next to him, hopefully putting him down since no ammount of physical force would....once again, it's never THAT easy....

He changed...in a burst of flesh and blood, his spinal column extended, he grew an additional pair of arms and an extended scythe plage on his backside...as the shed caught fire, it was clear that he didn't care whether or not I had "their blood" in me. Suited me fine. I never gave much thought to the blood brother concept anyway, and while he appeared more monstrous than ever, the appearance of his parasite which tried to intimidate me was all to easily his downfall. Taking advantage of the other gas canisters, his massive build was just extra weight when the explosions bowled him over. In his final moments, Mendez's spine snapped in half, allowing him little mobility as my last shots flew across the room. As he lay on the ground, one of his eyes fell out...a glass prosthetic with a particular retinal pattern etched into it. This was a key to a gate blocking my way to the rendevous point. This mission was just about complete....

Past the gate, the villagers mounted one last ambush. Using an old truck, they tried to ram us from the front. Quick history lesson...those REALLY old Ford grilles really don't take bullets well. I thought the surprise of that truck was bad enough, but during the charge, a horde of torch carrying Ganados ambushed us from behind....if Luis were here, this wouldn't have been an issue, but I was running low on ammo. Tossing a flash grenade to cover our escape, we ran for the gate leading to the rendevous point, as fast as we could without looking back...sadly, they had boarded up the gate we needed to get through. However, good news and bad news would soon present a detour....the good news is that we were right outside the drawbridge to an old Spanish castle, drawbridge down which allowed us to cross and raise it to escape our assailants.

The bad news...if I'd known what was in the castle, I'd probably have taken my chances outside with the Ganados.

PERSPECTIVE SWAP!

The plot thickens. Getting Ashley out of the Illuminados hold has revealed why the villagers are attacking and what the current goal of the cult is....but these creatures...Las Plagas...precisely what are they? Can't say for sure, but there's one in Leon and one in Ashley. They'll eventually fall to Saddler's control if there's no way to get em' out...and while Ashley can only be a catalyst for their plans, Leon would be freaking dangerous in the wrong hands.

NOTE: To make up for what we lose in fear by combat, we have Ashley. While she can assist Leon through environment interaction, she's completely defenseless. If she dies or is carried off by an enemy (to any area exit, not just any old door), it's the same as Leon getting ousted. Enemies will prioritize capturing her and killing me, but they may just attack her under certain circumstances (even though that would make Lord Saddler a sad panda).

OTHER NOTE: Saddler = Emperor Palpatine w/Purple robe instead of black.

Side Step Twenty Three: When in Europe (LSK-001)

2007-10-11T21:29:09Z

Survival Horror...I concede, violence and gore aren't my direct forte, but the prevailing trend in these games is simple...survive more often than not to escape the horrors surrounding you...on a secondary level, the games rarely tell you what's going on. It's often up to the player to gather hints and information scattered about the game to figure out why something is happening...same lure I have with Phoenix Wright, and by chance again with Capcom, the lure that brought me into Resident Evil. I found myself getting into RE4 at the start of this week, but it's worlds apart from the old forays into Racoon City during the first games...

Leon Scott Kennedy, one of two heroes from Resident Evil 2, is now under the employ of the US Government (just generically labeled "United States Agent"....what branch has yet to be made clear). The game opens in a woodland area in a Spanish speaking region of Europe (Capcom denies it being Spain), Leon riding with some police officers to an undisclosed location. He's tasked with the generic mission of finding and rescuing the President's daughter, Ashley Graham. As he arrives at his destination just on the outskirts of a small town, the officers decide to stick around the truck. "Wouldn't want to get any parking tickets, eh?" they tell me....yeah, why don't YOU two follow me? At least parking tickets will move down the list.

(PERSPECTIVE SWAP)

I walked into the woods a little and found a small cabin. Hoping to get some leads on the whereabouts of Ashley, I decided to enter and see if anybody was around. I heard some weird coughing inside and found an old man tending to a fire, thinking he's just cooking his lunch. When I tried to show him Ashley's picture, he just shouted something in Spanish and turned away. Since I (and clearly Leon) don't speak Spanish, I tried to leave it at that, but nooo...never THAT easy...guy picks up an ax while I have my back turned and takes a swing at me! Tried to warn him by pointing my gun at him but...well, some people just can't be reasoned with. I let my lawfirm (Heckler and Koch) do the talking for me. After putting him down, I took a look at him....Umbrella fell after the exposure of the Racoon City crisis, and this guy didn't have any of the T-Virus symptoms....at the very least, he wasn't a zombie (Some people hate aliens. Some people hate spiders, snakes and the like. I hate zombies....so I'm a little confused here). Suddenly there came a sound from outside...a truck starting? I rushed to the window to see a truck leaving the front and heading straight for the officer's van. I'd have been more worried about them if pitchfork wielding villagers weren't coming for me by the front door. Since they were likely waiting in ambush, I lept out the window to give em a surprise attack from the side. A few gunshots (and head explosions later), I checked on the van...it was crashed at the bottom of a ravine, but the officers seemed to be gone...I decided to move along to the village.

It wasn't your average stroll through the park. More villagers hid in wait to attack, and since I don't speak the native tongue, I don't know why they want to kill me. I'm not in favor of fighting when I don't have to, but I'm even less in favor of being slaughtered. One thing I could understand was the bear traps...actually, there was a dog with one of his hind legs stuck in one. I let him out and went along my way. No reason he has to suffer....however, one trap that came as a bit of a surprise...tripwire dynamite, but it was hung far too high to be an effective stealth trap. Though it made little sense, I crept around it and made my way to the village, defending myself as needed.

Coming to the village, I hid behind a tree and used some binoculars to get a look at the people before going in. It was a quaint, old spanish-western kind of city with the villagers going about their daily chores. Women gathering water, men pushing wheelbarrels of hay around and...uh...apparently, a fire with one of the officers body hanging on an anchor and burning over an open flame...I felt a little more alone in this mission, but I kept an air of optimism...no parking tickets anyway. I'm pretty sure they're going to gang up on me if I rush in there, so I have two options....either I rush in and try to power my way through, overwhelming them with firepower but risking massive damage, or I sneak in and try to evade all enemy contact as I stealthily creep through, risking combat in tight spots if something goes wrong and surprises me...

...yeah...I do NOT like surprises. One decisive rush into the town later (letting THEM make the first move), I find myself at the end of an alley, shooting back slow moving villagers as they wield whatever sharp object they could find. It's a lot different from fighting Umbrella's old bio weapons...zombies lack all but the most basic intelligence, so they can be shot down easily...the villagers...los ganados (the herd) as a note called them, talked to one another...evaded my fire...covered their faces...moved to surround me....they worked together in the interest of taking me down, giving respect to everything but their own lives....try as I might, a new wave replaced every one I shot down. I would've lost for certain if that bell hadn't rang, calling them away for...something. Taking advantage of the sudden break, I raided the village for ammo and supplies...of paricular interest was a note with pictures of Leon. It said they knew the American Agent was coming to rescue the prisoner and to kill him on sight. Somebody knew I was coming and had planned everything....but the villagers...while they weren't zombies, something about them seemed human and inhuman at the same time. The note also mentioned that the prisoner had been moved beyond the barn, so guess where I went next?

A few more traps and firefights later (with villagers now throwing dynamite no less), I came to an old cabin in the woods. In need of more ammo and medince, I decided to make another raid. The basement had an....armoire? I dunno...I'm no good for furniture, but anyways, it was jiggling....armoires (?) don't jiggle. Flipped it open and a prisoner fell out...just not the one I'm looking for. Releasing him proved to anger a few villagers that followed me in, as well as Chief Mendez, the big cheese in these parts. While I tried to give him a good solid kick to the floor, he just proved too powerful for me at this time (read as: He grabbed my foot midkick and tossed my sorry ass to the hardwood floor). I woke up a few hours later in some shack in a valley on the south side of the village....WAY far off from where I needed to be.

Escape was pretty simple, given the lack of high tech security, but the prisoner (who identified himself as Luis) turned tail and ran following a quick conversation. At the very least, he knew who Ashley was when he saw the picture...said he's ex-police with Spain (Though Capcom denies this being Spain....but those officers were wearing uniforms pretty similar to the Madrid Police Force), but that doesn't explain what he's doing here (but notes suggest he's being a collosal pain in the ass to Mendez and his boys). Making my way back to the village, I crossed into the Chief's house and had another encounter with him...this time, he just grabbed my throat and started choking me. He easily could've killed me, but he let me go...looking into my eyes and saying "You have the same blood as us...". He left me in the hall, but I felt a bit...restless, so I decided to follow and see if I couldn't get even....biiiig mistake. Grabbed my neck again without any intention of letting go, when all of a sudden, two bullets flew into his back from the window....now,. the Chief is a PRETTY BIG man....like T-002 Tyrant big (but he seems to be human), and he barely flinched when shot. Still, he let me go and turned around to see a woman's figure outside the window, with a bright flash of red around her body. He lept to the window to try and sieze her, but she was just too quick for him....woman in red....where have I seen this before....anyways, I stole a key from Mendez's cabinet with a chapel insignia on it....I saw this back in the village, so a quick 2 + 2 later leads me back into the village...to a building where all the villagers had filed into after my attack at the start of the game.

An underground passage in the insignia building led me to a cemetary in front of a church (Theeeere we go...knew this was coming). My operator (Hunnigan) told me this is where Ashley would be. I'm legally obligated to say "the door was locked"....yep. If you didn't see this coming, you're as wasted as a blind person at David Copperfield. Needing to find a way in, I searched the nearby cabins and found a note. The note told me the key was behind a waterfall (YAY! Direction!), but the lake it was beyond was guarded by something....something called "Del Lago"....from the lake? It is guarded by something in the lake called from the lake....what?

Arriving at the waterfront, I thought it might be a good idea to scope out the lake and see what this "Del Lago" is. The binoculars showed two villagers in a boat, dropping something into the water...the body of the second police officer. They just left his dead body to float there...not a very good hiding spot, I thought, til' this HUGE ASS FANGLY FISH surfaces from the water and swallows the body like a piece of popcorn....this is not your average sushi. Given the surroundings, it appeared to be a mutated alligator or something along those lines, but that really doesn't matter...I've got to cross the lake in a boat, and if the officer is a piece of popcorn, then the boat is a stick of chewing gum. I get in the boat and cautiously make my way across the lake...nope. Never easy, is it? The fish swims up from behind, tries to swallow me (As if to say "Suck my dick! I'M A SHARK!"...thank you to those of you who got that) and misses....but gets the anchor embedded into his back. My thoughts?

I'm gonna duh-huh-eyeeeeee!

No time to worry about dying now...I grin at thee, thy grinning...uh...alligator looking mutant thing! THUS! I give up THE SPEAR!...or at least anywhere between 7-10 or so. He's dragging me around by the boat's anchor, I'm swerving around trying not to get eaten when he turns around, and throwing harpoons whenever I have a moment to spare. For all his ferocity, Del Lago responds pretty well to pain. One good harpoon is enough to make him veer off course....with enough of my giant metal toothpicks sticking out of him, he finally succumbed to his wounds...with the anchor coming unattached from the boat...sadly, the rope has somehow wrapped itself around my leg. The knife, formerly a weapon for the very very foolish or the very very brave, quickly became my best friend as I took rapid, desperate strokes at my leg to get free before Del Lagos' dead body could take me under. One sigh of relief later, I take the boat to the opposite shore...I thought that was the end of it, but that's when it happened...a violent headache nearly put me on the verge of crashing to the ground. In the interest of safety (and that's a relative term around here), I crashed into a nearby cabin, passed out and vulnerable, only to be awoken by Hunnigan six hours later....

(PERSPECTIVE SWAP: End of Chapter One)

The mystery before me...the villagers are being made to attack me...an investigation of the village during my raid at the start showed basic facilities that could be expected of domestic living in this region. They aren't soldiers, but they charge forward with the common goal of taking me out in any sort of primetive means. The President's daughter is supposedly in the church under lock and key and at least two other parties (Luis and Woman in Red Dress) are active, if not in cahoots. The trick is figuring out who works with who and what cause they all serve.

...yeah, it was a big nerdy post, but I had fun writing it.

Side Step Twenty Two: The Day The World Went Nuts

2007-10-11T02:39:23Z

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/index.html

Scroll down....just a little....on this day....it's been delayed for a little while....but....but....b-b-b-b-but....it finally happened....the most obvious and amazing crossover to haunt the dreams of oldschool gamers everywhere has finally come to fruition....

....yup. I've been quiet for a while and this is what brings me back? ....sha, I think it warrants a quick nerdgasm. Real entry of some sort tomorrow. I'mma read a little more "I Am America (And So Can You!)" before I hit the sack.

Side Step Twenty One: Picture, if you will...

2007-09-27T03:29:07Z

...a window, a door, and maybe one of them melted clocks that make such spiffy decorations free floating around in space for no reason at all. A nerdy introvert sliding slowly and slowly across the borders between the Meyers-Briggs personality tests and becoming a little more sociable....right into The Twilight Zone!

Okay, maybe I'm being a little dramatic (Gotta have the EFFECT! The BRAVADO! THE PASSION, RAGAZZO!), but I can just hear the words of my old highschool classmates now. "Kux, sociable?! Doing stuff? Of his own free will?! WTF?!". One, bit dramatic again. Two, I'd also be very surprised that they knew my nickname (Real nickname too! Wootness!). Three, yeah, I was a bit of the anti-social, stereotypical nerd as opposed to the semi-social one I am today (Not QUITE there, but I'm coming along nicely). I put too much stock into what other people though of me, spent obscene ammounts of time in my textbooks (I don't regret this at all, potential extroversion aside), and at one time or another, did have a pencil sitting on the rim of my ear.

Then there are days like today when I realize just how far I've come from high school (which was probably radically different and hellish in it's own special way for everybody ^_^). Every so often it happens, as it did today, that I go on my evening hike and receive some form of heckling as cars pass by me. I get honks, random yells of things I'd have to be running forty five miles and hour to make out, and like today, which I first found a bit confusing, a girl will yell out "Hey Cutie!" from the window on the other side of the road. When this happens, and I don't know how I conditioned myself to do this, my head nods off to my opposing shoulder, thinking "I thought I was alone...somebody coming up behind me?" only to find out that I am, in fact, the only one around. Now, this happens, and at first I was just confused...then I take a look at myself and see what I was lacking before. I've lost weight...my complexion cleared up...I'm actually talking to people not because I have to, but rather want to...even forcing myself to make small talk in a few choice cases. Who knows? Maybe I've developed some sorta boyish charm along my travels through college and the workforce...or maybe I'm spouting nonsense and thinking too much.

Anywhos, a little drama in another friend's life has earned me a place to crash in Tampa on Friday night and help her move apartments on Saturday. A spur of the moment chat turned into a pre-move party and the actual move the day following...well, whatever merit can be paid to the above reflections, I've determined I'm not doing anything necessarily wrong or necessarily right....I'm doing SOMETHING...and that's enough for me.

Side Step Twenty: Sharper Smashing through a Caffine Buzz

2007-09-18T02:14:39Z

It can be said that Tim's 22nd birthday was a rather nice revival of that Demitri Martin joke "There are a lot of games...sometimes I feel like they could all have the same name...'Which one of my friends is a competetive asshole?' It's like tonight we played Steve.".....nah, we don't get that uppity, but there were some crazy moments during the great games.

You Don't Know Jack "Offline" kicked us off once others started to shuffle in. We had seven guys, plus Tim's girlfriend Rochelle (only girl in the bunch...mighta been awkward if she didn't fit in so well). so we were rotating players in and out, and when Phil finally gets up, I couldn't believe what happened...a Gibberish Question came up (Wherein a nonsensical term or phrase comes up and players have to guess what it rhymes with) and the clues suggested it was a game of some sort. The term was:

"London's Bandwagons"

So we're all sitting there...wondering...thinking...what the hell does this rhyme with? Finally, Trevor rings in. I'm still thinking until he types in the word "Dungeons" and then everybody but Phil bursts out laughing. Phil is going "OH! OH! OH! NO FREAKIN' WAY! WHAT DO I DO EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT?!"....oh, that just set us all to nearly laughing ourselces to death. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised I couldn't figure it out. I've never actually PLAYED, but it's a law that everybody at a gaming gathering should at least know the name Dungeons and Dragons.

Moving on, Trevor brought in a DVD he and a buncha his buddies made about zombies in Orlando...I dunno, something about them not being dead, but "mortally challenged", people getting eaten, super zombies that were really actors in makeup, police driving by and not questioning what these strange individuals were doing, broom handles...you know, the whole ordeal. Trevor openly told us this movie did suck...told us it was so bad, it could make Silent Hill (Movie) look good...no sir. All that did NOT prepare us for how bad this really was...crappy horror movies usually get the "B-Rank" title or some such nonsense, but we unanymously agreed that we need to invent a new letter to describe just how terrible this movie is...still, we got a few good laughs, and they had fun making it, so all turned out pretty well, despite being one of the most painful hours of my life. ^_^

Following that, our numbers were thinning out, so after a quick viewing of the Demetri Martin special "Person" (gift from me. Tim's interested in writing about good humor, so I bought him some standup routines...oh, but he recruited me to help research "bad" humor...I fear I'll eventually have to see Aqua Teen Hunger Force sometime in the near future *shudder*), our numbers were down to four. We ordered some pepperoni, mushrooms and sausage pizza (a PMS pie, as Tim calls it) and played this game called "Murder" (It has three meanings to me now!). It's a board game Tim's grandfather came up with. The principals are the same as "Sorry" or "Trouble", but the game is built so you can play in teams. Here's a hitch...to get a piece on the board, you need to roll a 1 or a 6, and for the longest time, we were all haunted by 2s....somewhere along the line, and I don't know if it's the caffine buzz I was getting around then, but I said "Okay, that's it...I'm replacing '2' with 'Fuck' in my numerics.", prompting everybody to say "fuck" when in reference to 2. Sounds just plain stupid, but it gets worse....I was getting a chain of 6s, which let you roll again, and found one of my pieces directly behind Zane's. At this point, I'm pretty strung up and thinking silliness, and if I get a 1, I can send his piece right back to his reserve (where it's stuck til he gets another 1 or 6). In a moment of geeky bravado, I say "Oh, this has been a long time coming, now I avenge Trevor's loss! Sweet half of fuck, SEND HIM TO HELL!", and I dunno if it was my little chant that did it or just my luck at work, but that 1 came up just as sure as I'm writing this. Disbelief and laughter filled the room....and even though Trevor and I ultimately lost, we got plenty of craziness outta this messed up little moment of ours.

SMASHING! Woot! It's only natural that when four remain, the smashing shall begin! Melee was the order of the evening. Individual reports...lessee...

Tim: In a surprising turn of events, Tim actually fought beyond his usual capacity. With four players out (Human players! CPUs don't count!), you can't afford to not be more aggressive. Without overthinking his defenses, he did way better than usual...if only he'd do that a bit more against me. Functioned well with Samus (and got some lucky hits with Jigglypuff in).

Chris: Me. I use Fox and I use him very well. I gave as well as received, and just barely pulled ahead with the highest KO count of the evening (57, behind Trevor's 54). Sadly, as they said, I'm not much without Fox (Instead of building up my weakness, I maximize my strengths! High speed beat and beat!).

Zane: The worst of the four still wasn't saying much against him. While he held his own for a while, he was typically the first to fall, using Roy in the process. When I asked him why he wasn't using his best character...ooooh, that was a mistake...turns out Roy IS his best and he asked me to show him to do better. Following, we had a 1 on 1, both using Roy. As stated, I have no real proficiencies with any characters other than Fox, so if I can whup you with your own best character, you need a new best character.

Trevor: ....holy tjord...dude is GOOD! While he struggled as well as any of us to take wins, he fought extremely well with Link, Zelda, and I 2 thee not, PICHU! PICHU! The biggest joke in the game (...well, maybe next to Mr. Game N' Watch) was a potent weapon in his hands! The only suggestion I could conceivably offer him is to use Shiek when using Zelda (he says he needs the defensive power with Zelda or he'll lose for sure....meh, he'd kick our asses decisively if he learned to use Shiek as well!).

....ho, good times with good smashers...how could we round off the evening? Liquor? Women? Monty Python and the Holy Grail?....yeah, you know it's that last one and nothing more. One of the best movies EVAR (and a relief after Trevor's Travesty against Filmography...though in fairness, it WAS better than House of the Dead by Uwe Boll) was the ticket to ending the evening...for me anyways. I'd been hanging around since noon, a few hours before the party began and had a few things to look into. Said my goodbyes and took my leave around 15 past midnight.

Ah....now to endlessly ponder said "things" I looked into...aw, two, I need a more distracting hobby.

Side Step Ninteen: Say "Hello" to my Enchanted Elephant Gun!

2007-09-10T18:15:44Z

Survival horror games are a bit of a tricky business. Give the player too much and they lose that sense of the unknown. Tell them too little, and they feel lost, perhaps confused. During the limited lifespan of the Gamecube, Silicon Knights worked with Nintendo to release a game called "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem". While it doesn't quite create the same feeling of occasional hopelessness that Resident Evil does (you usually have a fast, capable melee weapon, something RE rarely gives the player), Silicon Knights took it upon themselves to weave a tapestry with a sense of history, the occult, and much to my surprise, an occasional sense of humor.

The story follows the attempts of a liche to summon an ancient...a supernatural being of immense arcane might. Four such beings exist, three having a rock-paper-scissors like relationship, where sorcery beats might, might beats insanity, and insanity drives paranoia into sorcery. A fourth being, whose sole purpose is to keep balance and hold dominance over all of them, is sealed off early to prevent interferance. Depending on actions made by the player, the final scenes, enemies, and spells acquired throughout the game will be altered to reflect the path selected. The player, as many brave souls throughout time, must take measures to save humanity in secrecy.

History...the main story itself is set in the year 2000, but we get our first look into the chain of events in 26 BC, controlling a Roman Centurion under the name of Pious Augustus, seeking an artifact for his emporer among desert ruins in Persia. Another chapter puts us in a cathedral in Amiens, France. Yet another in a temple in the jungles of Cambodia. Every so often, the narration will break for a moment to explore the Roivas Mansion in Rhode Island, just to give us a more "at home" feel, so to speak. These four settings take us throughout history, be it in the Cathedral during the Roman Inquisition in 1485 or as a converted military field hospital during World War I over 400 years later, showing us the souls who fight behind the veil of relity to defend humanity from the ancients...which brings me to the next sense...

Occult...magic, monsters...more to the point, sanity itself plays a role in this game, but more on that later. Magics of offense, defense, and summoning creatures from the void...depending on the time and setting, one could be facing a mysterious stranger with powers from beyond or a horde of heretics in a time where witchcraft is running feared and amok....and it's all recorded in the pages of a book. An infernal tome bound of flesh and bone. One who comes into contact with it will gain the magic of knowledge of all those who held it before them, as well as see the misfortune fate sees fit to bestow upon them...they call it The Tome of Eternal Darkness, and while more a prominent a gameplay element than anything, this book shows it's treacherous tale to all who come to touch it.

Sanity....The game builds itself on the premise of what we see...our perception of reality. Is what you were raised to believe correct? Would your belief in something change based on one observation? The sanity gauge measures your grip on reality. When we see these "things"....creatures that we were raised to believe should not exist, our sanity falls....when we perform actions that take a toll on our mental state, we lose touch with what we believe in, and we move a little closer to insanity...sanity alters many things...our ability to cast spells....if it's bone dry, we can suffer physical damage from it....but perhaps the most interesting effects are the ones that don't target your avatar in game, but you, as the player. Can you see past what's in front of you and gain a grip on what's real? How long will it take you to realize the truth?

Humor...this is mostly geared towards certain sanity effects and their components. The only one I can refer to without spoiling the game is a particular item in the tenth chapter of the tome in the possession of one Edward Roivas...a small flask containing seven draughts of "Liquid Courage". Need to drive away all those evil spirits? Take a quick swallow of some spirits! Nothing like a little bit of the bottle to get you back in touch with reality!

Truly a fascinating story and a sorely underplayed card by Nintendo.