Raithe

Just to help the week along...

Well I wasn't judging it as apolitical or political. I was more interested in it as a way of getting people to wrap their mind around the number of dead rather then seeing it as simply a statistic.

Tim Minchin's UWA Speech.. http://youtu.be/NyBvbot3emM

http://vimeo.com/97488887 September 21st 2013, International Peace Day, on the Normandy beaches at Arromanches. Artists Jamie Wardley and Andy Moss include a team of international volunteers to help complete 9000 fallen figures, raked in the sand to create a massive monotone image. The Fallen are without nationality, without names. They represent a lost life, contextualising the 9000 daily mortalities during the Normandy beach landings in 1944. A longer documentary is in production and this is an early teaser to commemorate 70 years since the Normandy beach landings of 1944.

I think it's the little things that catch up and make people complain. The reflections and water graphics are amazing. It falls down a bit with the shadows, there's no dynamic shadows. But yup, I have to agree, the graphics are pretty damn good and I don't see any real issues to complain about. Just minor niggles that aren't as next-gen as they originally talked about.

Wrong time period, judo was the martial art of the samurais. Really wrong time period, Judo wasn't created until just before the turn of the 20th century. If you were talking samurai, then it was more jujutsu. o O (sorry, my pedant came running out there..)

Went to the workout. Warmup, gymnastic exercises, chest and core.. followed by a short jog with interval sprints... Still feeling drained. Now add thirsty. Going to drink a big mug of tea and ponder doing a ridiculously too-many-egg omelette with bacon and cheddar....

Trying to decide if I can / should make it to the workout in a couple of hours... but I'm just feeling utterly drained today. Not tired, just, really low energy levels for oomph. Just cooked up a couple of slices of bacon and pondering on a fresh cup of tea to help stir me onwards..

Murdered Soul Suspect. I thought it looked interesting so I gave it a go. It's somewhat moody and mostly atmospheric, it's got some interesting ideas, and the whole walking through walls thing makes maps a touch more confusing. It could probably do with some form of in-game map, especially one that shows the various clues/collectibles you've found. Although it's not that big so its easy to learn where you're going to and from and what streets are open and which are blocked off by various ghostly "memories" of old building and such. It's based around one medium-to-small "hub" that counts as the streets of Salem, and various locations around it that only open up once you reach that point in the story. The story is quite linear and will probably take under 10 hours to run through. It's fairly average writing, nothing too spectacular, nothing too bad. It tends to be based on : go to a crime scene / location, have a cut-scene, look around for clues, discover clues, potential cut-scenes of "memories" you pick up, a couple of conversations (some in cut-scene, some where you actually pick questions to ask), then a game mechanic for putting clues together to figure out what happened. cut-scene, then move on to the next part of the investigation and repeat. Occasionally broken up with wandering "demons" that are long lost ghosts that now try and drain all ghosts they see. That's mostly irritating, and I think put in to give some element of "combat" to the game. But it pretty much sucks. The demons all have fixed patrol routes, and you have to defeat them by sneaking up behind, pressing and holding R, and then at some random time you get a mini quick time event (random choice of a directional key + right or left click) and you destroy the demon. If you don't get it right, they turn around and kill you. I'd say it was that mix of somewhat entertaining, but disappointing because it could have been more. The didn't push the pulp noir aspect enough, it was too linear, the hub and areas could have been a touch more expansive, and the side-quests really needed to be fluffed out more - There were about five, and they mostly consisted of a short conversation with a ghost and searching the nearby areas for clues to relate to their death (said search usually being 3-6 clues you needed to find). A good idea, but somehow lacking in execution.

Remember you can use the Focus ability to slow time down even during car chases. That's meant to enable you to use those features. Also, if you get the flashing Q will go blue as you go past if it will neutralise people chasing you. So if you keep an eye out for that, you don't have to try looking behind you for the timing. I never found that much problem with the cop cars, if you whip down a couple of alleys and shortcuts, combined with hackable obstacles, they're fairly easy. The odd thing was that if they're a short distance away I could seem to outrace them, but if they're close to you, it's like they're glued. The pain comes with the helicopters. Even when you get the hack that lets you disable them briefly, it's a major pain to target them when they're directly overhead and you're in a car.

Having an idle return to Crusader Kings 2, fooling around with The Old Gods and the Raj of India...

For the kittens..

Star Trek Stabilised... What it actually looks like when the camera isn't shaking... http://youtu.be/5nKDQBwpCJg

..Okay, I was tempted to put that one in the Funny Things thread, but it was too hard to resist. To make up for it, hmm...

To wander into the cosplay.. and add nightmare fuel.. Edit: Yes, that is Transformers / My Little Pony body paint cosplay. And no, I really don't want to find whatever fan-fiction caused this amalgam...

I think SR2 has a more.. cohesive storyline in general. SR3 was a bit more patchy in that regards. But SR3 was a lot more balls out crazy in general in regards to all the things you could get up to.

Had a major headache flare-up yesterday, to the extend I actually "borrowed" some of my mother's pain killers. Dihydrocodeine can certainly take the edge off but that's the man-made opiodes for you, still I've then pretty much slept through till nearly noon today. Now it's pull myself together and figure out what needs to be done for the rest of the day. Hm, and see if I can make work-out tonight...

Heh, even Saints Row games give you more news reports on things you've done in game then Watch Dogs.. Or maybe you just need a really crappy reputation with the citizenry of Chicago. Anyone played that route yet?

Okay, with Watch Dogs.. I think things I would wish them to pay heed for the sequel (since its pretty much assured of going into franchise)... 1: Better inventory control method. Being in the middle of a gunfight and having to hit tab to open up inventory, mouse "wiggle" to highlight an option, then either mousewheel or arrow keys to scroll through that option - all while you're getting shot at... That gets a wee bit awkward. 2: More news reports about your activities. Or at least the results of your activities. Some gauge of what's happening in the world. There were hardly any snippets about what you did. Mission where raging third world war happens in a gang block the police don't go into and gang leadership decapitated? One brief mention and that lasted about 10 seconds. Until the last couple of missions there wasn't even any mention of the popularity of such of the vigilante, even though the "vigilante" was news from the very first mission. Note: The "big" side missions of such where you have a whole bunch of collectibles to gather and then a final mission to wrap up - like the serial killer, don't get mentioned. The sex slave trade only gets a short clip in the end credits, and no mention in game despite having been linked to a main storyline mission and explosions, gunfights, and hordes of cops descending on the docks. So yes, something more to make the world feel more alive and reactive to your actions. 3: Economy. Seriously, once you've picked up a few weapons, there's nothing to really spend that much money on. Even if you stop hacking random citizenry and stealing their money you end up with a ridiculous amount of cash that just sits there. There should be something to do with it. 4: Offline mode : If you've got it switched to offline mode you should stop getting the damn pop ups inviting you to accept online contracts. 5: Audio logs : Most of the collectibles and such involved background on characters and things happening in the form of various audio clips / diaries. Which is all fine and dandy for providing background fluff.... But when it reveals big kickers about things, but then your character acts completely oblivious to what you've discovered (in fact, not even recognising names and terms) it feels decidedly odd. There needs to be some form of reactivity, or at least not provide access to those sorts of logs until after events in the game where they get discussed. It's just, disconnecting to have a road map of what is really going on laid out to you, but not having it mean anything in game.

Yeah, I am be-puzzled. I'm afraid that one went right over my head in my state of disconcertment..

Were you in a railroad yard when the news story broke? No, there was no breaking news story. One minute I've been all quite and unknown and just "the vigilante" with no name, then I do the mission that has you meeting T-Bone.. and the cut-scene has my face plastered across the news. Next thing there's radio news reports about the manhunt for Aidan Pearce, but absolutely no mention of how they figured it out. Weirdness. Just a little disconnect I guess. Edit: Okay then.. and a few missions later, there's a big reveal of who you are. That's.. a little bit odd. Things seem a little out of kilter there.

Huh. Not sure if I missed something or not, but in Watch Dogs I've managed to keep a high vigilante rating, there have been no news stories about me, you go through a chunk of Act 1 and 2 making sure no-one knows its you.. and then suddenly a few missions into Act 3 and my face is on the in-story cutscene news, and there's radio news about the vigilante Aiden Pearce.... Hmmm....