Lack of Profound Things to Say

I realise it's times like this that made me want to start the story and webcomics to begin with. The days when I can't think of anything to blog about, talk about, write about or even think about. Unfortunately, I tend to get very involved, and start to develop them beyond their intended purpose for improvement. The story is very much alive, and I've worked out the entire thing, believe it or not - taking some cues from all over the place while I'm at it. I've even worked out the complex combat style I intend to describe in the story. The webcomic is suffering from a combination of a lack of ideas and a lack of interesting occurences to describe. That means I have to actually write stuff out, and that means that I'd like to develop out the characters (although there's only two currently) before I start churning it out on a regular basis.

Getting overinvolved isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when people are waiting for it, then you get something like what happened to Duke Nukem Forever. Since you're always looking for ways to improve it, every once in a while, you find a way to take a huge leap, but to make that huge leap you have to spend more time on it. So you keep pushing back your deadline (since there isn't one, just one you made up) in an effort to satisfy yourself that it will satisfy whoever it is you intend to distribute the product to (be it a webcomic, a blog post, or even a game.

Sword Fantasy has been in the making since 2001. And I still haven't completed it. Imagine - I've planned out everything: dungeons, characters, storylines (for 10 games no less), gameplay and even multiplayer at some point. However, every year, I also revise it massively. The gameplay now is nothing like my plan in 2001. Multiplayer has been added and scrapped. The storyline has been revised to stretch 3 games instead. With the revised gameplay, comes revised dungeons and enemies, as well as a new levelling system. That's not to mention now that we are in 2008, there's a lot more leeway for my game engine. I can now go high resolution - high quality sprites, animation, particle effects - and it'll actually run faster than the original alpha version I built for DGX in 2001.

Despite all this, I've no doubt I'll go back, scrap it, and remake it anew within 5 years. The same goes for Fantasy of War. I keep moving back and forth on the story, filling in the gaps, and realise some gaps require a massive rewrite of everything else. Then I finish the story. For now. And then I decide to add some new story element, or cut down on the convoluted sections of storyline, and I rewrite the entire thing again.

I've never truly procrastinated on any of these things, it's just that you want them to be perfect, and it really chokes when you try to go that extra mile - and realise that at some point, you need to reach a destination.

It just won't be the same if I just came back and said I'd write them out as they are now. I wouldn't be happy with the result, and would probably regret it more than never finishing. And so now I realise I didn't have a lack of profound things to say after all.

Anyway, I thought I'd post something else too:

In the Geek's Toolbox

Every tech geek has to have a toolbox. The toolbox will generally be for small things like opening stuff up and putting stuff together. In Malaysia, I bought a dedicated computer toolkit that'll cover just about most things you need to do. Here in Australia,without that toolkit, I've collected a unique set of tools that will do another series of things I happen to perform often.

From the left:

1. A digital multimeter - I bought this since it was on offer at Jaycar. I would've preferred getting hold of a more traditional analog one, which I'd imagine will happen eventually.

2. Screwdriver bits  and screwdriver (at position 6) - Essential for opening up just about anything. The bits let me deal with just about any kind of screw you find in a computer, and even XBOXes and XBOX 360s.

3. Pliers - Essential for any toolbox. If you need an explanation, then I guess you don't own a toolbox, or have never actually done anything. If I stay any longer in Australia, this will soon grow into a repertoire of cutters and crimpers.

4 & 5 & 7. - Small specialty screwdrivers -  If you've ever dealt with small proprietary-ish screws on electronics, you've probably got a set of these. Small flatheads, Philips heads, Torx heads and even a Triwing to let you open most small electronic devices, be it a Nintendo DS, mobile phone, or even *gasp* an XBOX 360 controller! (Yes, 5 is the mini equivalent of 2 and 6, but occasionally provides a little too much torque when tightening small screws.)

I know my toolbox isn't much, not to mention the mandatory soldering iron and solder are missing, but I intend to rectify that eventually. (Yes, I have a bad habit of opening up my consoles. So what?)

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Review

It's no secret I'm a big fan of action games. Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Assassin's Creed all float my boat. The Force Unleashed is no different. The Force Unleashed puts you in control of Starkiller, an over-the-top powerful Dark Side force user, who can cut down swathes of enemies in an instant. Never before has a Star Wars game given the player a Force user this powerful to control. While some of your abilities are locked at the beginning of the game, and they are progressively unlocked, that feeling of power never wears off - you are always more powerful than your enemies, and there's (usually) plenty of Force power to go around.

The game has been made to be very simple, so that hack-and-slash players can just mash the saber, lightning and push buttons to get them through just about anything. The enemy variety is lacking creativity, but certainly not lacking in variety. There are enemies resistant to you saber strikes, some are resistant to your lightning, others can shielded against your force push. There is a cost to this though - because of the way the storyline progresses, the combat feels very uneven, and there is a strange difficulty curve, which keeps going up steeply the first few levels of the game, then suddenly decides to drop again. While the bosses do get more difficult, the enemy encounters do not. This is especially apparent when you revisit Felucia and the Felucians are happily at war with the Imperials, and allows you to just run through unnoticed for the most part.

Levelling up is slow. For every level you gain, you gain a sphere of each type - one for each category of ability (innate abilites like health and force, combos and force powers). You can find more if you're willing to hunt down the many Jedi Holocrons scattered within the level, but I haven't bothered. Still, by the end of the game, I was happily imbued with level 3 Force Push, Force Lightning and nearly the whole list of combos.

There are several sources for frustration in this game. The first of which is that there are many levels in which you can easily fall down. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you could easily end up down some ditch since enemies occasionally decide to bear on you with stunning capabilities that keep pushing you backward until you die. Not fun. The second source was trying to pull down the Star Destroyer like you see in the trailers. I can assure you it is not fun. The loose locking system makes the waves of TIE fighters annoying as hell, and that's not to mention that I had to fool around with the Star Destroyer a lot before it finally came down. The third issue is the relatively loose locking system with no easy to switch targets (not that I've noticed anyway), this results in a lot of throwing stuff around you didn't intend, or wasting Force points on something that is immune to grip.

While these problems are here on your first playthrough, I'm sure you are meant to play it again - and the second time round, I imagine you'd find the enemies perfectly fine, and you would've gotten used to the locking system, not to mention learning a few tricks.

However, there are problems that won't go away. I ran into quite a number of bugs while playing the game. The boss battle on your first visit to Raxus Prime got stuck between some chairs, and it took a lot of coaxing to finally get him out. I myself have gotten stuck in the first visit to Felucia in some plants I accidentally jumped into. These can be frustrating bugs if the last checkpoint was quite a distance, or was just before a miniboss battle. There were some occasions where I caught a stormtrooper or two standing there like an statue. They didn't move unless you damaged them, and in general, when you damage a stormtrooper, you usually kill them. Another source of constant pain is snipers, and high position turrets. They annoy the hell out of you, and are way too difficult to take out - thanks to the locking system, and rather finicky Force Grip controls for chucking nonsense at them.

I still love the game, and the feeling of being godlike in Apprentice mode is something you have to try to understand. Unfortunately, some of the game's flaws can be deal breakers for some, and despite my bias, I think it will have to take a 7 out of 10 from me, despite me rushing to finish it so quickly.

(Review based on a 6-hour run through Apprentice mode. I know it's probably unfair, but hey, a lot of people are going to be going through this mode anyway. And if you would excuse me, I need to go finish Sith Lord mode.)

Malaysian Politics

I know I don't talk much about Malaysian politics on my blog. I follow a set of rather strict principles of self censorship. In fact, if you were to search this blog database, the only other talk about politics was about workplace politics at a certain computer store. That's not to say I'm not interested.

I haven't been completely up to date, but needless to say, plenty of things have happened since the last elections. The most notable of which is that Anwar Ibrahim has returned to the political stage - and is now leader of the opposition front. Even if he is unsuccessful in his takeover bid, there's already enough change to guarantee a somewhat more unpredictable outcome by the next elections.

Malaysian politics is taking a slow but sure conversion into a time of change. Most of us are hoping that the end of this period will bring about true democracy, and who knows what will be the state of affairs when the next set of elections comes around? One can't be sure whether the change will be for the better or the worse until it happens.

September 16th is coming. While I'm not expecting anything to happen on that day exactly, I'll eagerly be waiting Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that's coming out the next day - while observing intently for what might turn out to be a very interesting week.