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2015 in Games

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

Well it’s a bit late in coming (blame Australia and the blogtastrophe), but it’s time once again for my annual summary of game playing and purchasing!

The numbers were up this past year, with the game-playing drought of early 2014 a mere memory now. Also last year was our first year with the PS4, but as it turns out it wasn’t the system that captured most of my time. In total during 2015 I purchased (or obtained as gifts) 69 games for a total cost of $2006.27, or an average of just over $29 per game. The numbers were up on 2015 by about 50%, but the average cost of games actually decreased. In addition during the year I purchased two new 3DS systems (a ‘new 3DS XL’ for me, and a 3DS for KLS).

As a percentage of total purchases, here’s the chart:

And as percentage of total dollars spent:

That latter chart includes the cost of the two 3DS systems, which is why the 3DS portion is so large.

The most notable element of this data is the abundance of PS Vita, both in terms of games (32) and dollars (almost $800). This system, which was by many accounts DOA even when I purchased it last year, has become a bastion of imported Japanese RPGs, and while many of the games aren’t stellar quite a few of them are very good and I’ve been having a blast buying – and playing – all of them. Very quickly my Vita library has become quite large, and I’ve still got over a dozen unopened games on my shelf (and more arriving every month) that will give this system legs for a long time.

The other notable is the Wii U. Not much to say there, except that the system is not so much dying slowly as has never lived in the first place.

As usual, I’ll comment on my favourites in a moment. But first, four particular games warrant mention…

The first is Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer for 3DS. This is a charming ‘game’, with beautiful presentation and a massive – massive – amount of content which was tragically marred by some very poor design decisions. Essentially the game is about interior decoration, where you design and furnish houses for the other animals in the game. But the designers chose to omit such obvious things as budgets or rating systems or any sort of currency or systems that promoted gradual improvement. At best it became a toolbox where you just designed homes for the sake of it, and became stale very quickly. A very missed opportunity, and a great disappointment.

The second is Super Mario Maker for Wii U. It’s a wonderfully designed product, and I love making courses… but I don’t have anyone to play them and strangely I don’t particularly enjoy playing the (often terrible) courses designed by random strangers. That said Nintendo has done a wonderful job evolving the product since release, including adding content in the form of special downloadable courses, and I suspect I will periodically return to this one to see what’s new.

The third is Witcher III (PS4), a titanic game with mind-boggling graphics that looks insanely fun and would certainly have made the list below had I played it. But I didn’t, because it’s KLS’s game 🙂

The last (and you can sigh here) is the eternal Puzzle & Dragons (iOS). Yes I’m still playing it (spoiler alert: last Saturday was my 1000th consecutive login) and yes I still love it. The game has evolved so much over the years, and has become so generous that I haven’t actually spent any money on it for going on 18 months now. I’ll likely play until the servers close years from now 🙂

As for my favourites, well it was a year of great games, so I’m going to upgrade from three to five. Here they are in reverse order:

5) Terraria (PS4)

I got into this pixel-art 2D ‘build-em-up’ early in the year and love, love, loved it. The PS4 version cost me an absurd $4.98 in a sale and I must have easily gotten 100 hours out of it. I built a massive castly, dug a shaft all the way to hell and even had my own mushroom farm. I made so much amazing gear, killed every boss and did and saw everything in the game. Highly recommended.

4) Axiom Verge (PS4)

The work of a single guy, this 2D Metroid clone was the game I was waiting for and never knew existed. Again, it dominated my time around Thanksgiving and I loved every last second of it. For an inexpensive downloadable game, this one is a no-brainer.

3) Diablo 3 (PS4)

The PC version was good, the PS3 version better, but the PS4 version is just superb. I played more of this on PS4 than any other game this past year, pushing my Wizard and Barbarian characters (that had been imported over from PS3) to new levels of insane power. The game very recently updated with a brand new patch, so I’ll be returning to this one soon. Or maybe not, since who know’s how long this next game will last…

2) Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

When Xenoblade came out for Wii a few years ago it blew away those who played it. Which weren’t many, since it was released here in limited amounts. But it was a masterpiece of a game full of charm and innovation that I remember very fondly. This is the sequel for Wii U, and it’s even better. I’m currently playing it, 80 hours in, and I feel I have only scratched the surface. It’s basically a single player MMO with all the systems you expect from the genre, set in a truly massive world with some of the very best graphics I have ever seen (on the Wii U!?!?!). It’s easily one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played and I don’t think it will ever be surpassed on the Wii U. A monumental achievement in game design. And yet, despite all this praise, not my game of the year…

1) Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)

You knew it was coming didn’t you? When this game came out my savefile passed 100 hours in the first 10 days. Think about that. I played like a man possessed, but as much as I accomplished there was always more. This is easily the best MH game yet, and the addition of online play directly from the 3DS (a first for the series) took the gameplay to an entirely new level. I ended up putting the game aside after about 250 hours of play, but returned to it after my Oz trip and have amassed another 60-odd hours since then. SFL and I have been hunting regularly every week and it just keeps getting better. At this rate it won’t just be the game of 2015, it’ll be the game of 2016 as well 🙂

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Time | 1 Comment »

That Time I Made A Record

Sunday, December 6th, 2015

Many many years ago, I had a good friend. Let’s call him Rooster.

If I recall, he and I bonded over music Depeche Mode to be specific. We were both big fans, although possibly more I. We both liked synthpop bands in general, in those early days, and spent endless hours debating the merits of artists such as DM (great!), New Order (bleh!), Skinny Puppy (eh?), Art Of Noise (snooze) and OMD. That last one I dismissed then, but now recognize as one of the greats. Rooster was a curious fellow, unpredictable and often inscrutable. I could fill this blog with amusing (and fond) memories of him and the stuff he and I got up to.

This would have been about 1985 or 1986.

Anyway he lived in a big house with his parents and sister. I’m hardly sure the sister even existed, so infrequently did I see her. She was younger (I think) and didn’t go to our school (I think) and was very shy (I’m sure). Or perhaps her mum just hid her from us, since Rooster’s mum was intense. His dad was a judge and I rarely met him, but his mum was often home when I visited. She was friendly to me, but Rooster and her argued a lot and it tended to make visits often awkward. Also I don’t recall ever going upstairs despite many visits to the house. In fact I don’t recall ever being in any other than one large downstairs room, which looking back on it seems weird. But I went a lot, since we were friends Rooster had a lot of stuff at his house.

For instance, he was the first guy I knew with a video camera. It was a massive over-the-shoulder thing that used full sized betamax cassettes and couldn’t rewind itself. I dimly recall us wandering the streets and recording random things and eventually having a police car stop and question us about what we were doing. I also recall taping other friends at a party at his house (in that one room…) once. I’d love to see that tape today.

Rooster had a lot of musical instruments as well. A piano (which neither he nor I could play), a guitar (ditto), a drum kit (!), an accordian (!!) and then one spectacular day, probably in ’87, he produced an electric keyboard – a synthesizer! – and something that looked a bit like this:

That’s an early drum machine, specifically the Korg KPR-77 released in 1983. It was one of the first with an LCD screen and an memory to save the ‘song’. Rooster’s was better than this – much better in fact. His not only included a basic drum machine, but also a sampler and sequencer. Think of the iOS Garage Band app in a plastic box (much bigger than an iPad!) and that’s about what he had.

We had it all: the keyboard, the drum machine, the sequencer and the new romantic attitude. It was time to start our own synthpop band!

Looking back we probably lacked the most important requirement: talent!

But this hardly slowed us. The keyboard was connected to the sequencer, as was a tape and a microphone. Nearby we had a stereo so we could ‘dub’ things from other songs. And then, in one single day, we laid down an albums worth of tracks.

There was the eerie opening song: ‘Doubter’s Son‘, which consisted of a sub-melodic drone speckled only with the eponymous lyric which increased in frequency until it took over at the end. There was a song about a dog. There were a few instrumentals that at first glance sounded like random noise. There was a spoken word piece that read some lines from a greeting card. And there was the inevitable first single: ‘Hello I’m A Fish’. We collaborated on the ‘music’, and I recall most of the ‘singing’ was provided by me. About 6-8 songs in all were recorded that day, carefully saved to tape and even adorned with a homemade ‘record sleeve’ with liner notes and lyrics. It was dedicated to girls we liked (but we didn’t name). I believe we made three copies in total. We we very proud of it. We loved it.

I used to listen to mine a lot! I still remember (and this is no exaggeration) with great clarity the tune of Doubter’s Son. There were discussions about a second album, or even renting studio time to remake our first one more professionally. Rooster may have even sent one copy to a radio station! If our ‘band’ had a name, I don’t recall.

We shared out creation with others and it was immediately obvious that we had produced something challenging. Most of the initial reactions were giggles, which quickly became uncontrolled laughter. They loved to hate it, calling it noise or garbage. This bothered Rooster a bit, but I didn’t care. In those days I may have said “Geniuses are rarely appreciated in their time” (with a big grin myself). A friend of mine (Thud) did a fine rendition of ‘Hello I’m A Fish’, but his heart wasn’t in it like mine had been. Most of the girls I played it for hated it, but then they thought Rooster was unusual anyway. I stopped playing it for others.

I wonder what my family thought? My brother will remember it. I look forward to his comments.

Only a year or so later Rooster and I had turned our back on synthpop – at least publicly. Who cares about a-ha when The Sisters have a new record out? I had long since stopped playing the tape, but it still languished in a drawer somewhere. It became the brunt of infrequent jokes, sometimes dragged out to laugh at when people were drunk. In the last year of high school Rooster got a job as a DJ on the radio, and sometimes I’d go in and sit with him while he played records. The studio had a bulk eraser in it that I occasionally used to erase cassettes. One time I took a whole bunch in with me, including ‘the record’. We had a laugh about the idea of playing one song on the air but never did.

I honestly don’t remember if I erased it that day or not.

It’s been many years since I heard those songs. When KLS came to Oz in ’92 I never played it for her. In fact just now she told me I’d never even mentioned it. I don’t remember the last time I listened to it or even saw it. I don’t remember even forgetting that it was important to me. Even if any copies still existed after 30-odd years it’s unlikely they could play.

That brilliant first album of a nameless band – crafted in a single day – is probably now lost forever.

Posted in Music, Time | 2 Comments »

Corporal Punishment

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015

I was talking to KLS the other day about punishment back in school and she was slightly appalled by some of my stories. It seems she was never punished back in her school years, or perhaps was never bad enough to deserve punishment!

I’m not sure I was ever actually caned in school, although I vividly remember being in a room with the principle of my first school (St Pauls) while another child was caned. It was classic ‘back of the calves’ stuff, using a stick much like the one pictured. I remember him crying out, so I guess the teacher who did it really got him good. I don’t recall why I was there, or if he was a friend, or what he (or I, or any of the others there) had done.

A few years later, at a different school (St Josephs) , I was beaten by a nun. I think the crime was ‘talking in class’ (a skill I mastered at an early age) and I remember I had to put my hands palm down flat on a desk while she hit our knuckles sharply with a wet ruler. Why wet? Because she licked it first. I can remember it hurt intensely (she was basically hitting our bones wasn’t she?) and I probably vowed to myself at the time to speak more softly next time I spoke in class!

This was in the very late 70s, and caning didn’t seem an unusual punishment. It was dreaded though: the ‘nuclear’ option for students who presumably didn’t respond to other forms of discipline. But as I aged, it seemed to become less common and certainly by my teenage years was all-but-unheard of. I recall a debate in the media about the practice that led to it being ostracized and then banned, and a quick glance at Wikipedia shows me this happened in 1987, although the ban was repealed (!) two years later and the practice was legal again until ’95. I doubt many schools caned then though, since the public has shown such disapproval.

Now detention, that was a punishment that my high school embraced fully, and I was several times the recipient of the coloured-paper letter home informing my parents I would be staying late after school. Here’s a few of the reasons I can remember getting detention:
– For peer-pressuring another student to throw a tennis ball at a teacher. The ball hit him squarely in the face and we all got a weeks detention.
– For telling a teacher she had a big nose.
– For exposing photographic paper to sunlight to intentionally destroy it.
– For having a ‘clay fight’ in an art-room that resulted in clay being stuck to walls and ceiling.
I’m sure there were others!

Detention was always an intriguing affair. It never really bothered me much because it wasn’t very long (an hour) and it wasn’t very uncommon. Almost everyone I knew had been on detention at least once, and many of the times I got it so did my friends (exception: the nose comment). The actual ‘punishment’ differed depending on which teacher was unlucky enough to be supervising that day, and ranged from just sitting in a room silently (the most boring) to picking up rubbish around school (slightly interesting) to going across the street and getting fish and chips and then returning to watch Pretty Woman in the A/V room (I kid you not)!

One of my friends (PM) used to save his detention letters and would proudly show them off. When given a weeks detention once during a class he boldly told the teacher he wouldn”t care even if she give him a year’s detention. So she did! This was big news in the playground in those days, but I think his parents complained and he ended up with the original week.

In my final school (SFX) if detention existed I was not aware of it, and caning was certainly not done there. Discipline was most definitely a thing (and one I was slightly involved in while I was captain), but I think it was a bit more progressive than beatings and incarcerations. Next time I’m in Oz, I’ll ask my friend KB (who works at that school now) how they punish the miscreants in the 21st century!

So were you ever detained or beaten at school? Do you remember why?

Posted in Family, Time | 6 Comments »

A Mystery Finally Solved!

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

I like Mark Gatiss. While there’s no doubt he’s a bit of a genre gadfly, he’s certainly literature, accomplished, and seems to share a lot of my interests. A lifelong fan of horror and science fiction, he’s forged a career in writing and acting that includes such shows as (new) Doctor Who and Sherlock. I’ve liked most of his work, read a couple of his books, and watched (or listened to) quite a few of his documentaries. In short, this is a guy worth paying attention to. Plus, Jon Pertwee is His Doctor too.

Yesterday I watched his three-episode History of Horror series that he made for BBC some years back. It’s all on YouTube, but if you only watch one episode I recommend the second. As I watched it yesterday I felt a great sense of relief wash over me as a lifelong mystery was solved.

Let’s cut back about 30-something years. It was a dark night, past our bedtime, and mum and dad had started watching a horror movie. Being a bit of a (nascent) buff, I wanted to watch as well, and sat down with them to enjoy it. I recall shots of fields and forests, and someone plowing a field, and then a terrifying and eerie shot of a skull with a living eye in it. This very shot, to be specific:

It terrified me, and I’m sure you can see why. Mum quickly changed the channel and packed us off to bed, but I didn’t forget the image quickly. In fact I never forgot it, and have wondered for my entire life what the film was and why the farmer found this in his field and what happened next! I’d made attempts over the years to deduce the identity of the film, and have watched countless british horror films of the 1960s and 70s always wondering when – if! – I’d find the one with this unforgettable image.

Until yesterday the mystery was unsolved. But thanks to Gatiss’ documentary, I now know the identity of the film:

The film is called Satan’s Skin or The Blood On Satan’s Claw and was made in England in 1970. It seems like an entirely disturbing and remarkable horror film about a rural village influenced to depravity and evil by The Devil. I think it’s quite right that my mum didn’t let me watch it 30+ years ago!

Of course now I know the identity of the film the next step is to actually watch it. This may prove difficult due to the DVD being out of print and the Blu-Ray being UK region only (and very expensive). It’s not available on Amazon prime either. But I’m a patient sort, and it’s now added to my list of other films that I intend to one day sit down and enjoy. I wonder if I’ll find it as creepy now as I did when I was a child?

Posted in Family, Movies, The Unknown, Time | Comments Closed

Probably Of Interest Only To The Bear

Saturday, July 18th, 2015

I haven’t made a World of Warcraft post in ages since I stopped played about 2 years ago (Sep 10, 2013 to be precise). Blizzard have been relentless in trying to get me to return, offering me free game time several times over the years. Mostly I ignore the offers, but yesterday I redeemed a free week and logged on to see what has changed.

Here’s what I saw upon login:

Of course there has been a new expansion added as well. I found it interesting they don’t mention that.

A couple of UI buttons were highlit with big glowing help arrows. One was the ‘collections’ button, that contains the pet, mount, toy and heirloom collections. Here’s a shot of the toy collection:

And here are the heirlooms:

There are so many mounts in the game now (>400 I think!) it’s just a bit crazy. The new ones added in the expansion are mostly boring reskinned wolves and pigs, but this guy caught my eye:

Look at the cost! Many of the new mounts seem excessively pricey. I guess Bliz wants to reduce player wealth.

Speaking of wealth, the other UI button they were directing me to was the in-game shop, where you can buy mounts and pets…

Or other things like game-time tokens ($20 each) that can be sold on the AH (~24k gold apiece) or even a $60 – sixty dollars! – level boost:

I wonder if they only priced it that high to make the additional cost of the expansion (which includes one boost) seem like a deal?

Anyway I had to see the new character models, which were billed as a big draw. For comparison, here’s a shot of Momomo (my main character) from back the days of the old models:

And here she was, all ready for some styling, immediately upon logging in today:

It’s not a massive difference is it? The short hair and weird face were not to my liking though, so I tried a few looks…

Before settling on this:

The fancy new character models are underwhelming. For starters the characters still look quite dated due to the limitations of the armor. And secondly the vast majority of characters have their faces covered by big bulky helmets (or shoulders) so you never see the new faces anyway. Not a selling point in my opinion.

Since I don’t have the expansion – and don’t intend to buy it now – playing the game stuck at level 90 is a bit like getting a free ticket to the movies but having to leave after the trailers. There wasn’t really anything to do that wasn’t available back when I quit, so I got bored very quickly.

I did have one quest I was always meaning to solve, so I went and beat up this dude:

They have added some sort of buff when it comes to fighting lower-level monsters (including raid bosses), which made Black Temple a faceroll. Which is good, since I’ve forgotten how to play and the class has changed so much I couldn’t really be bothered to relearn 🙂

Oh, and the game is dead. There wasn’t many people on at all (including in the capitals) and the guild seems to only have a dozen or so people that play:

So my free week didn’t keep my interest more than 24 hours. I parked Momo on her pretty sparkling horse (obtained from playing Hearthstone of all things) and said goodbye once again:

I’m sure one day I’ll buy the new expansion(s?) and return again. Just not today!

Posted in Games, Otaku, Time | 2 Comments »

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