Tech – Page 20 – Robot Claw

2014 in Games

December 20, 2014

During 2014, my game collection saw its smallest growth in 17 years, but I ended up spending more in total than I had in the last 4 years. How was this possible?

That’s the answer: I went into 2014 without a Vita (PSV), and will leave the year with a Vita and 20 games for it. This isn’t to say I adore the system (it has many flaws…), but it does have many of the sorts of games I like to play and since I believe the system is dead, I rushed to buy them all this year before they became difficult to find.

In total I bought 46 games in 2014 and spend a total of $1613.90. That’s an average cost of $35, which is a big increase over previous years. This is because I bought zero iOS games this year, and instead concentrated on 3DS and PSV software.

Here’s the charts:

That’s the breakdown of units sold per system, with the Vita at 20 and the DS at 1. Despite being owned for longer than the Vita, at only 5 games purchased the Wii U isn’t seeing much use…

That’s the dollars spend breakdown, and you can see the Vita ate the lion’s share of my spending. The tiny sliver for the DS is because the only game I bought cost $5 🙂

As for the games themselves, and my playing habits, looking back on 2014 I would have to say it was a mixed bag. The entire first half of the year (and into summer) was a bit of a drought, with me not playing much at all. In particularly I barely ever turned on the consoles (PS3 and Wii U) during those days.

But then something clicked after my summer vacations and I found myself become re-interested in gaming as the year moved into the fall. In particularly I very much enjoyed some Vita games like Toukiden and Demon Gaze and by mid fall the 3DS had me entirely under it’s spell with two masterpieces (see below).

BeforeI get to my favourites, two games deserve a special mention…

The first is Super Smash Bros for 3DS. This year Nintendo released Smash Bros on both 3DS and Wii U. I purchased the 3DS version, and will eventually get the Wii U version as well. The 3DS version however was, in my opinion, a bit of a square peg in a round hole. While Nintendo did an admirable job of stuffing a massive amount of content in, the game suffered from poor controls and a design not ideal for such a small screen and I put it aside quickly, with the intent of saving myself for the Wii U version.

The other game is Puzzle & Dragons, last year’s game of the year winner. Yes I’m still playing it (>580 days played now), yes I’m still loving it and yes I still think you should play it too. But I won’t include it in favourite lists this year since it disqualifies having won last year!

So my favourite games of 2014, in reverse order:

3) Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)

This one came out of nowhere! Koei stuffed Zelda into the Dynasty Warriors engine and produced a game almost better than both! If you like hack-and-slash games then this one is for you, and the astonishing amount of content could take hundreds upon hundreds of hours to beat. Bravo Nintendo!

2) Theatrhythym Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)

Curtain Call took everything that was good about the first game, multiplied by ten, and produced maybe the best sequel ever. I played this like a demon, leveling every character to maximum (sometimes more), SSS ranking every song and collecting all the cards. This is a music game ever that can stand along side Ouenden, and took over my life for a month or so earlier this year. While I was playing this I would have said it was a no-brainer for game of the year, but then something else came out…

1) Fantasy Life (3DS)

Level 5 have created an action RPG with near perfect controls, beautiful graphics, and vast amounts of stuff to see and do. In addition to the usual systems (fighting monsters, casting spells, talking to NPCs etc) the game includes twelve classes (from Paladin to Cook) and you can go fishing, brew potions, make (hundreds and hundreds) of items, armor and weapons and recruit followers. It starts off easy and a little confined, but after a dozen or so hours of play you realize how mind-bogglingly big it is and how much time you’d need to max everything. Which I did. Including all the expansion ($9 on the 3DS store) content! All told I played for about 150 hours before putting it aside, but I suspect one day I’ll return just to finish off the (very difficult!) ‘Master Quests’. This isn’t just the best game I played this year – this is one of the best games I have ever played. Highly recommended.

As I always do I’ll end with a question: how was your year in games? What were your favourites in 2014?

Sounds Of The Universe

December 13, 2014

Well my friends it’s been altogether far too long since my last blog post! I won’t list the reasons since they are history now, and truth be told I was holding back a little, since today begins my third ever ‘blog event’! I present to you:

What does this mean? A new post a day, for twelve (very majestic) days! You can look forward to posts about crafts, weird collections of mine, year-in-review posts and even a secret or two (bears??!?).

What better way to start this cosmic event than with this:

Yes, it’s a vinyl record. I obtained this prize from a second-hand bookstore when I was in San Jose earlier this year. Although Bernard saw it first, he was strangely uninterested and I knew it had to be mine! Here’s the track listing:

This is not a music album, this is a sound effect album! None of that ‘Doctor Who Theme’ stuff here, no sir. This is a record for true fans!

Yesterday, I removed the album from the sleeve for the first time, spend about 10 minutes trying to remember how my record player worked, and gave it a spin:

The sounds that came from the speakers were not like anything on this Earth! It was as if I was right there on Exillon as I listed to the sonorous droning of ‘The Central Control Room in Exillon City‘. It was bliss.

But the next track blew me away, and since describing it is almost beyond words, why don’t you listen to ‘The Dalek Control Room‘ yourselves:

And so it continued as I listened to such wonders as the electronic hum of ‘Styre’s Scouting Machine‘ or the astral winds of ‘Sutekh Time Tunnel‘. I was being whisked from planet to planet with each new track.

Side two continued the trend, although the tracks are a lot more uplifting than on side one. As en example, here is ‘The Mandragora Helix‘ in it’s entirety:

Beautiful isn’t it? Believe me when I say the rest of the tracks on the record are just as good 🙂

This album was released in 1976, and I have the US version from 1978. It’s in astonishingly good condition for something 36 years old, and even though I will go to the grave without ever playing it again, it is certainly a jewel in my record collection!

I think these guys may agree with me…

Ferrofluid

November 18, 2014

One way to imagine magnetic fields is by drawing lines showing the direction a compass would point if placed into the field. Here’s an example:

The black lines depict the magnetic field directions. This can be hard for students to understand at first, so another technique is to show the field lines by placing iron filings near a magnet and watching them align themselves in the direction of the field, like this:

The black bar is the magnetic. These sorts of demonstrations can be artistic:

And given enough filings can even show the field in 3D:

But the best illustrator of the field, in my opinion, is to show the effect of the field on a liquid. ‘Ferrofluid’ is the name of a magnetic liquid invented in 1963 that suspends micron-sized iron nanoparticles in a viscous fluid. This allows them to flow as if they are a liquid, and leads to striking displays of magnetic fields like this:

The magnet in the above picture is underneath the bowl containing the ferrofluid.

I’ve been using images like all of the above in class for years when I introduce the magnetic field and when I found out last week how easy it was to actually purchase ferrofluid (which is toxic and can apparently stain anything) I just jumped at the chance. Here’s what my new bottle of ferrofluid looks like:

Just some black oil in a bottle isn’t it? The bottle is filled, most likely with pure water. The fluid is likely oil filled with the iron nanoparticles, and is extremely viscous and doesn’t mix with the water. It’s quite unremarkable by itself, but becomes something quite special when exposed to a magnetic field.

Here’s a short video I just made (it’s in HD, so fullscreen it if you like):

Wonderful isn’t it? This will stay in my office with all my other demonstration units, and I’m sure it will give students and my coworkers many smiles!