J Chaos

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:32:06 GMT

I've voted. ^_^ Here's hoping for a good next four years.

Huh, this is interesting...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:17:55 GMT

A possibly new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book.

I'm not sure whether or not I'm looking forward to this... I've never read the Artemis Fowl stuff...

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:05:17 GMT

Ahhhh... Now THAT was a restful vacation.

Cool weather, a friend up in that area, and lots of video gaming. My one complaint was the humidity made it hard for me to sleep.

Ah well, I'm home now, the weather here is cooling down. I think I'm gonna toss a pizza in the oven in veg out for a bit. It's good to be home.

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:16:56 GMT

Mrgh... it's been a while, but the insomnia's back.

I swear, this is one of the main reasons I can't live anywhere else. Humidity makes it so difficult for me to sleep.

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:02:24 GMT

Final Fantasy 13 for 360 as well as the PS3.

Ha ha ha! Oh wow!

What really kills me is that I called this two years ago, and the fanboys said I was insane.

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:12:17 GMT

Ahhh... home from California.

^_^ Disneyland was great fun, if tiring.

La Jolla was cool, relaxing, and a great way to blow a week.

Not much more to report than that. It's good to be home.

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:31:39 GMT

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring

BANANA PHONE

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:42:53 GMT

"Dad... Dad... I'm not a crazed gunman, dad. I'm an assassin! ... The difference being that one is a job, and the other is mental sickness!"

Meet the Sniper

I lol'd muchly.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:20:05 GMT

Got a concert tonight that I've been waiting months for!

Video Games Live, I've been hearing nothing but good stuff about it. I can't wait to get there and see the show...

YEAH!

Thu, 15 May 2008 22:53:00 GMT

All right, I'm finally all squared away for my master's program!

Two or three semesters, depending on the availability of classes, and I'll have a Masters in Library Science.

I am so glad that all of the problems with the admissions process have finally been resolved.

Sun, 04 May 2008 23:27:34 GMT

Man, I don't know what's going on, but I feel like death warmed over...

Urgh, if I'm not feeling better tomorrow, I think it's time to go see the doctor.

Y'know... Sometimes...

Fri, 02 May 2008 09:09:58 GMT

Depression REALLY sucks.

This is something like the fifth night in a row where I've both gone to bed early and woken up within close to an hour of going to sleep.

Blah... I need to find something to do that can put me back under easily.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:48:45 GMT

It's good to see that IJ's back. I was worried there for a minute.

Everyone doing okay? I miss anything important?

In amusing news, I'm getting 95 cents back from the government this year. Sometimes, you just gotta ask yourself... "Why bother?"

But then the IRS gets this fangy look and comes after you in the night with their audit team...

Dangit... My muse was being so good up until yesterday...

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:32:47 GMT

It just figures, doesn't it? I can blaze through one chapter of a fic with absolute ease, but for the next one I can barely get a page into it without getting stonewalled.

Maybe I'm approaching it from a bad angle. I'll have to go back and try to poke at this from a different direction.

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:42:53 GMT

I got my college diploma yesterday.

^_^ I'm feeling REALLY good right about now.

Now I just need to find a good master's program...

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:09:32 GMT

Can't... fucking... sleep...

-_- Body, plz to not be keeping me awake for no reason, huh?

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:19:26 GMT

Oh internet, why must you fail?

Six hour 'net outage in Vegas. So very fun...

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:03:23 GMT

I swear to god, my insomnia is going to drive me insane...

On the other hand, it did enable me to find a new trick in DMC4 that I'm dying to try out.

I've come to a realization, and am ashamed to say this about a Devil May Cry title...

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:38:42 GMT

Playing through this on Son of Sparda mode (Hard mode, why did they feel the need to rename you? -_-), I've come to realize something about why I don't view this title as highly as I would otherwise.

This is the first Devil May Cry title to EVER feature fake difficulty as opposed to real difficulty. Even 2, as horrible as it was, only had a couple of the staples of fake difficulty, mostly in the form of prolonging fights.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, perhaps this link will explain it better.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

The camera angles in this game have been worse than the others by leaps and bounds. Fights have been placed in the absolute worst places, often to abuse those very same camera angles. Controls are strangely less forgiving than the earlier renditions of the game... There's a time limit in the bloody palace... The list goes on and on.

God, someone needs to smack whoever made all these decisions for this game...

I don't normally geek out about Gaia, but...

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:55:40 GMT

Dude, awesome monthly collectibles this month.

Magical Schoolgirl and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

That sounds like a simultaneously bad and AWESOME B movie.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:53:04 GMT

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

May you spend it with those important to you.

Fic Request/Experiment

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:36:00 GMT

So, I'm here trying to get back into writing and going back to my main fandom, Devil May Cry. Even with some good advice from kuchehexe and yuuo, I'm finding myself having trouble coming up with a decent plot to start with. The best thing I've come up with so far is disturbingly open-ended and not the least bit interesting in terms of something that I'd want to read.

So, I'm finding myself pondering interesting ways I can get my plot muse in gear. And what I've come up with is this, as stupid or brilliant as it may be.

If my friends list wants to, I'd appreciate it if anyone could come up with some sort of supernatural incident to deal with. Be as detailed or vague as you like. Demons? Vampires? Faeries? Miscellanious? Anything's game. Dante gets calls to deal with just about everything under the sun (or moon, in the case of vamps), so why limit myself to my own plotting? (Especially when it seems to be backfiring on me...)

My trick will be to turn these into business calls for Dante to get. With any luck, I can turn them into a couple of one-shot fics, and if my muse latches onto them especially tightly, maybe turn it into something bigger.

Gratuitous Lyric Post

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:20:23 GMT

I figured that I might as well post the Lyrics for the theme song of DMC 4, since it's a good song. I've really come to like the music in the DMC series from 3 onward. Heck, "Seeds of Love" was a damn good theme too... Anyway.

I'm gonna need to check the bonus DVD and see if this song is on here... Otherwise, I need to track down the MP3...

The time has come and so have I
I'll laugh last cause you came to die
The damage done, the pain subsides
And I can see the fear clear when I look in your eye.

I never kneel and I'll never rest
You can tear the heart from my chest
I'll make you see what I do best,
I'll succeed as you breathe your very last breath.

Now I know how the angel fell [just kneel]
I know the tale and I know it too well [just bow]
I'll make you wish you had a soul to sell [soul to sell]
When I strike you down and send you straight to hell

My army comes from deep within
Beneath my soul, beneath my skin
As you're ending, I'm about to begin
My strength, His bane, and I will never give in.

I'll tell you now I'm the one to survive
You never break my faith or my stride
I'll have you choke on your own demise
I make the angel scream, and the devil cry

My honored brethren
(My honored brethren)

We come together
(We come together)

To unite as one
(To unite as one)

Against those that are damned
(Against those that are damned)

We show no mercy
(We show no mercy)

For we have none
(For we have none)

Our enemy shall fall
(Our enemy shall fall)

As we Uprise
(As we Uprise)

To claim our fate
(To claim our fate)

Now and forever
(Now and forever)

We'll be together
(We'll be together)

In love and in hate
(In love and in hate)

They will see. We'll fight until eternity.
Come with me, we'll stand and fight together
Through our strength we'll make a better day
Tomorrow we shall never surrender. [X4]

We shall never surrender
We shall never surrender

You know, I really wasn't expecting much, but... (A DMC4 Review)

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:30:48 GMT

God DAMMIT!! That was it?!

The DMC4 was decent. Way better than 2, not nearly as good as 3 or 1. If you're not in the mood for Teal Dear, just skip to the last couple sentences.

I can trace my complaints to three things.

1. It seems pretty clear to me that Kobayashi is intent upon forgetting what makes the series good. That's Dante, and the stylish action-packed gameplay that can't be beat. What did this game bring? Nero, overall SLOWER action, and enemies that are harder to combo off of. WTF? When my combo options, enemy-wise, are limited to puppets and blades, what the hell am I looking at in the gameplay? Now, it's not entirely a bad game, as I said. The enemies here are an improvement over the ones in DMC3, but still, when enemies are prone to guarding one in three attacks out of a combo, turning insubstantial and MOVING THROUGH THE WALLS, it tends to limit the fun in fights. Strategy in fights = Good. Tedium? NOT GOOD. You guys almost got it right, but you went back to your old tried-and-true method of stretching out a fight, while only partly addressing complaints about being able to maintain stylish action.

2. Add to that fact that Dante was available for all of seven missions, and it left me seriously disappointed. Seven missions, Kobayashi?! Seven FREAKING missions as the hero of the series? On top of that, you've slowed down Dante to keep pace with Nero, and you gutted his styles to boot?! I couldn't do half the things in this game that I could in 3. I realize you wanted to make a difference between the two games, but differences mean BETTER gameplay options. Not worse. Furthermore, we were promised "More weapons than in all the prior Devil May Cry games combined." Even if you take out the weapons from 2, and even if you lump Rebellion and Force Edge in as the same weapon, that's still SEVEN devil arms, and seven guns. Dante got three devil arms and three guns in this one. That's LESS than in each of the other games, individually, except for DMC2. All of Dante's styles and weapons TOGETHER probably had the same amount of moves available as Nero did. I get it, it's Nero's game. What's worse, though, is that I didn't feel the need to switch out from rebellion, ebony and ivory, and the shotgun. The other weapons? A poor man's Ifrit, and... I don't even know WHAT Lucifer was SUPPOSED to be, but what it WAS was a joke. At least I can take comfort in knowing that the enemies that gave Nero a challenge are a freaking joke as Dante. Oh wait, I LIKE a challenge. (Still, I did enjoy utterly annihilating each of the bosses as Dante. DAMN that was satisfying.)

3. The story. Where do I begin here? How about with the good... It's a beautifully crafted story. It holds together solidly on its own, if it were its own entity.

Unfortunately, as tends to be the case with DMC storylines, it's predictable. Nero's an inexperienced kid, Dante's experienced and all powerful, the order's bad, yadda yadda, we get it. There was ONE plot twist that I didn't see coming right from the beginning, though it was still horribly telegraphed by the fifth mission. When Gloria was introduced, I had no idea she was Trish. Bravo, Capcom! Bravo!

And that, unfortunately, brings me to my main complaint with the story. The ENTIRE story hinges on... Trish giving the Order the Sparda Blade in order to gain their trust so that she can screw them over? ... Uh...? Okay, WHY?! She could have slaughtered the lot of them on her own, even if she HAD handed over the sword to them. They were a pack of mewling kittens with swords before she showed up, and by all indication they were incompetent afterwards. There is absolutely NO reason for her to have done what she did. Now... If she did it to be a dick, or if she did it to betray Dante, I could have bought it. I wouldn't have been happy about it, but I would have at least said "Oh, well... shit. Capcom fucked up a good character. Sigh, let's see how they get through this one." No, in this case, it was stupidity for stupidity's sake.

Capcom, I don't expect a masterpiece from you. You used up your creative mojo putting together DMC3, and pumped the rest of it into Nero, I get it. But why, in god's name, did your writers think it was all right to hinge the ENTIRE FREAKING PLOT'S PLAUSIBILITY on a character acting out of character and handing over a godly weapon to a bunch of mortals that're up to no good? I'd ask why your writers thought it was all right to have Trish doing something stupid, but it's only stupid if you look at it logically. NONE of the characters seem to think there's anything wrong with this. Had you given me even a line from Trish saying "I thought it might make it more fun for us" when she was talking to Dante, I wouldn't complain. But no. You don't even touch upon the fact. As a matter of fact, we don't even SEE it happen. You tell us this major plot point as though it were of no worth to us, you mention it in a cutscene as an OFF-HANDED COMMENT from the main villain, and it's the last we even see of it until the final fight when the main villain is wielding the Sparda sword.

For the matter, you guys don't even adhere to your OWN CANON! As I lamented above, the story would work well as its own entity, but it's not its own entity. It's part of a larger series. Your villains kept saying "Oh, Yamato is the sword that Sparda used to seal the underworld! We don't need Sparda! Ha ha! Let's go fuck around with demon summoning and black magic to take over the world!" and I thought "You know, Capcom, I've misjudged you. You clearly want us to think that these villains are idiots and that something big is coming when they try to use Yamato where Sparda would be required. I mean, they don't even mention the amulets, that's a huge plot point in two of the games!" But no. No, the villains were actually RIGHT. Yamato is the key to the demon world, and Sparda is just a big ass demon sword, and Dante and Vergil's amulets don't exist. It's my own fault for assuming that you knew what you were doing, but WTF?! How hard is it to pay attention to your own games?

And while I'm bitching about the story, WHY does Nero have a demon arm? What is his tie to Yamato? Who is he, and why do I care? Where did Yamato even COME FROM?! Jesus H. Christ, Capcom, when you're making a story, there are some basic things you need to do, like INTRODUCE US TO THE CHARACTERS AND RESOLVE THE MYSTERIES. I can buy that Dante MIGHT leave Yamato in Nero's hands at the end. Maybe he knows something we don't, and at least the interaction between them was damn good. Still, I'm pretty sure that even the squirrels outside of Capcom HQ know things that we don't, 'cause we sure as hell haven't been told anything about this kid and why he's worthy of everything he's getting.

And even the secret ending. It worked, but... what was the point? You're going to give us a scene that makes us think that these three did everything exactly as planned and that they're good to go on another mission.. when we didn't even get to see most of THIS mission? What. The. Fuck?!

Now, I'm going to fill up some space with non-spoilerific praise for the game, and the characters especially. This space is mostly here so that commenters aren't going to be forced to read any of the above spoilers, but it's worth reading nonetheless.

Your villains were beautifully crafted, especially Agnus. God, I loved Agnus. Second best cutscene in the GAME goes to Agnus. The poetic speech from a character that otherwise stutters a lot? The banter that read like a play, back and forth between Dante and Agnus, in the opera house just before the fight? I laughed my ass off, in a good way. And oh god, the way he died. That was a thing of beauty. Trying to save his notes after Dante shot them, begging Dante to tell him why demons are inferior to humans, then looking through the bullet hole in the one page he managed to save only to stare right down the barrel of Ivory when Dante tells him to do his homework? Sweet Jesus, I nearly came right then and there. THAT was writing. If the rest of the game's writing had that quality, point 3 above would have been completely moot.

Credo... Well, we didn't see enough of Credo, which is a damn shame. I liked Credo, but the good bad guys are always the first to die. If he had been developed more, he'd probably be my favorite of all the new characters. The guy believed the ideals of the Order and just got suckered into their evil.

Gloria. Without spoiling anything for people who didn't read the LJ cut, I'll just say that I liked Gloria, and I wouldn't mind seeing her again. Mreow!

Berial, Bael, Echidna. The three big demons of the game, in order of my preference. They were beautifully writen, and their personalities really stood out. Poor Bael only seemed to be a fluffer for the Nero wank-a-thon, but he still had a fantastic personality. And as much as I was unimpressed with Echidna (they could have done so much more with her!), she still filled her role as a bit player rather well.

Dante, Trish, Lady. The returning cast. All of them were beautiful, fantastic even. (Aside from one point I brought up behind the LJ cut, but it was required for the game to actually EXIST, so... eh. I'll pretend that there was logic there and blame it on bad plotting.) Dante's interactions with Nero were fan-freaking-tastic, exactly how I'd expect him to act. Trish's interactions with Dante? A thing of pure beauty; those two are partners and there's no question of it whatsoever. (And yet, Kobayashi says that the anime is canon, when the anime says Trish ISN'T Dante's partner. WTF, Kobayashi? Quit fucking up my series.) Lady interacting with Dante and Trish? I wish I could have seen more, the banter was gorgeous.

As for the combat... well... it's a mixed bag. It's a step down from Devil May Cry 3 in complexity and flow, as I said above, but it isn't bad by any means. Nero, unfortunately, has moves that nobody's going to use, which is a damn shame. The moves that do get used are plentiful and smooth, and the exceed system was.... interesting. I don't want to say it was good, and I don't want to say it was bad, but I can't complain about it and I enjoyed using it. It's gonna leave my fingers sore whenever I play, but it's worthwhile overall.

I can't get behind the Proud Soul system. Really, Red Orbs are all that we needed to buy moves and items. Proud Souls just complicated things, and it wasn't needed. The refund mechanic to it was nice, especially after I saw that some of the moves I bought were novelties not worth my time, but... yeah, I don't want to see this again.

Unlockables. ... Please, god, tell me that there's going to be downloadable content, because you didn't give us ANY unlockable costumes or weapons? This isn't like you, Capcom. What did we do to deserve that?

Now then, the Teal Dear.

Better than DMC2 by leaps and bounds, but not nearly as good as the other games in the series. As it stands, unless I see something REALLY different, and soon, I'm gonna chalk this up as a miss for the series, overall. It's not a bad miss, it ALMOST hits the mark, and it's not so bad a game that I'm not going to replay it... BUT... I would not recommend this game for newcomers to the series. At all.

Sigh... two, maybe three years until the next one.

Fix what's wrong, Capcom, please?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:59:37 GMT

It's in my hands now. :D Expect me to be horribly distracted. ^_^ And if you don't know what I'm talking about, well, you just don't know me very well at all, do you?