So Guess What Happened This Weekend.

I finally finished playing through Metroid Prime 3! I've had the game since I think the Christmas before last, so that makes uh, something like 17 months. Yeah...
Anyway, I'm too lazy to write a full review, but I thought it might amuse a few people to read my rant about the last level:
The last level is disappointingly short, and the boss battle was frustratingly long. The first thing that happened was that I had to fly my ship -oh wait, I apparently don't get to fly the ship in Metroid - uh, watch the autopilot of my ship take me to Planet Phaaze, the source of all Phazon. So I and a bunch of other ships show up and there's some kind of generic orbital battle sequence, and I fly myself - er, autopilot or whatever - down to the surface. Very Serenity-esque. I wonder if Samus was chanting "I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar" the whole way down...
So I get down there and take a peek around, marveling at all the trippy glowy colorful blue stuff, and then have what appears to be a heart attack. 'Cuz there was too much radiation or something. The practical effect is that I lose all the energy tanks I spent the whole mission storing up and get stuck in perpetual Hypermode. Which is pretty sweet, I guess, until I turn around and find that my ship "can no longer recognize [me] as Samus" and won't let me save. >:(
So I run around through some claustrophobic tunnels full of tentacles and whatnot and end up having to play Wak-A-Mole with a door. Apparently the door itself is indestructible, but it has these little polyp things that pop out now and then, which if you shoot in the half-second before they disappear will lose health on behalf of the door or something until you can go through. Or you could just do what I did and be in Hyper Ball Mode and just electrocute all of them as they come out. Heeheehee.
So I run around through some more claustrophobic tunnels full of tentacles and whatnot, getting grabbed by some obnoxious monster now and then, until I run into this big planty thing with a baby Leviathan in it. Aww! How cute. Now let's kill it. Because everyone knows Samus is a baby killer. And when it's dead I fall into a conveniently large and safety-rail-less hole, where I run into Dark Samus. ("You again!?!")
So I'm giving Dark Samus the beating she deserves when she decides to be all wank and float up in the air, generate some sort of magical bubble around herself, and GROW BACK HEALTH. WTFnofair. Not that it's very effective. Turns out that I can shoot her and lower her health faster than she can recover it, so she's still a n00b. Also she likes making these nice little columns that give me health. But then of course she gets more wank and clones herself twice. But of course only one of them is the real Dark Samus, so I'm glad I got all that practice playing Freddi Fish and learning how to remember which clam the whatever-item-it-was-I-was-trying-to-find was in. And then after a little while she realizes that we're not getting anywhere and brings along her handy reinforcement...
A big brain on a stick. So it throws some colorful junk at me and such, but then it really starts cheating when it summons THREE MORE DARK SAMUSES. >:C So I have to fend off those and try to shoot its soft spot and so forth, but then it still doesn't die. It just breaks off the stick and becomes a flying brain shooting lasers at me!
After about six or seven tries I managed to survive all three bosses and has win. And then the planet explodes. :O
But of course there's the obligatory cheesy ending:
Random but purportedly important military dude: "But what about Samus?"
Random but unimportant military dude: "No contact, sir."
Aww.
And then I come flying along giving the camera a nice cocky thumbs-up, yay!
Credits.
Greatest Metroid game I've ever played, complete with an ending worth ranting about. And of course not because it's the only Metroid game I've ever played, of course not.

Surprise!!!

So... for my first post in eons, I'm going to be doing a review on the various expressions of surprise seen occasionally. I will not be covering a large variety by a long shot, considering I will be adding quite a few obscure ones, so please comment with others and I might do a sequel later. =D

Oh my! - The "hand sort of up to mouth, take a step back, maybe drop whatever you're holding" reaction. In one word: Boring. In two words: Really boring. The only credit I can give you is that you're not easily surprised, but it'd be better if you just didn't say anything. I mean, C-3PO does this; you can't get much lamer.
(1/10)

Whoa! - This is an interesting expression. It ranges from the cool, quite "whoa" (as said by Morcupine Porcupine in Chicken Little), to the standing in awe and reverence "Whoooooaaaaaa," to the wild, arms-flailing, extreme back-peddling "WHOA!!!" It's an all-around solid expression, as it can be used to express your level of surprise, and can be quite humorous if used right.
(8/10)

Aaaaaaaah!!!! - Not to be mistaken with the next one in the list, this is just a yell. Optional "aaa's" can be added into the middle of the expression to make it last longer. This is usually done when horrified and/or when running away from something horrific. It certainly gets the point across: "I've got the crap scared out of me." However, it's not very enunciated or fluent. It's also not very satisfying to hear if you're the one doing the horrifying.
(5/10)

*blood-curdling scream* - Also known as "screaming bloody murder," this is often not the reaction to a bloody murder, but rather to seeing something along the lines of a worst nightmare. It is most commonly produced by ladies in black-and-white horror flicks. The usual follow-ups to this scream are: a breath and another scream, fainting, being killed, or being rescued. It's shocking, powerful, and guys can't (shouldn't be able to) do it; but it's just not all that impressive. Sorry, but our usual reaction is to laugh at you, not feel sorry for you.
(3/10)

"Holy ****!" - The expletives. This goes for all expressions of surprise that consist of only expletives. I'm talking about someone running down the hall away from the monster, desperately trying to reload his gun, muttering swear words to himself the entire way. Let's put it this way, the more you string together into one expression, the more we suspect 1: you are a red shirt and will die very soon or 2: you just like to swear too much, and the more ridiculous you sound.
(2/10)

Now for the more obscure sayings:

Great Scott! - Used predominately by Dr. Emmett Brown of the Back to the Future series, Dr. Watson from Sherlock Holmes, and various characters in Superman comics, this statement expresses either disbelief (Of the "No way!" variety) or sudden inspiration (of the "Eureka!" variety). My only issue with this one is that it really can't be used on a daily basis very well without making you sound stupid. It has that layer of cheesy cartoonishness that forces it to only be used in movies or comics.
(6/10)

Bloody hell! - If you've read Harry Potter, you should recognize this one. This is Ron Weasley's personal favorite expletive ever, and is fairly widely used by the British. Best part is, if you use this around friends, they won;t think you're stupid, they'll just think you're crazy! 8D I give it a plus for being British, a plus for how funny it sounds, and another plus for being British. Only downside is that some kid's mom might be offended.
(7/10)

Merlin's Beard! - Yet another Harry Potter reference, except this time it isn't used in real life. (Except by die-hard Harry Potter fans) =P I don't think there is a single person who has used this phrase as much as Prof. Slughorn has, though a couple other characters have used it on occasion. When said right, this expression can elicit tremendous laughter from the Muggles nearby, who obviously don't realize how serious the situation is.
(5/10)

Zoinks! & Jinkies!- The personal favorite expressions of Shaggy and Velma, respectively, from Scooby Doo. These get a high five for being completely original. No one but Scooby Doo characters and fans of Scooby Doo says "Zoinks!" or "Jinkies!" However, they only barely fit the cartoony atmosphere of the show itself, and can;t really be used irl at all.
(4/10)

My geek level just went up!

So today in my first period Lit class Garrett K and I were debating sci-fi vs fantasy, me obviously on the sci-fi side. Eventually it boiled down to Warhammer 40k, look it up if you don't know or ask me, it's probably my favorite fictional universe ever vs Forgotten Realms, the place where games like D&D, Neverwinter Knights and Baulder's Gate occur. After fighting over which setting was better we eventually got down to making comparisons of different races/people/weapons such as the Necrons vs the undead hoards and C-Tan vs the Undead God dude.after like an hour of debate we finally realized..."Man, we are such nerds, this is terrible...well it was fun though, wait, I know Tim will support me." And so others were brought into the pointless geeky debate however soon class came to an end but there very well may be a sequel to this tale soon. Meh, you after rereading this it seems that you might have had to have been there...oh well.

Game Review: Command and Conquer IV- Tiberium Twilight

Now that I've played the game practically all the way through, I think I'm in a position to make an educated statement about the game.

First off, a bit of background on C&C (Tiberium) in general. Tiberium is an alien, self-replicating mineral that is attempting to cover the entire surface of the Earth. The Brotherhood of Nod sees Tiberium as a catalyst to the next stage of human evolution, whereas the Global Defense Initiative (GDI)sees it as a dangerous non-biological weapon that must be destroyed. The wars between Nod and GDI have spanned almost 75 years, starting with modern weapons such as small tanks and infantry squads, and evolving into Tiberium-powered mechs and mega-tanks and the like.

In each previous C&C game, it has played like a traditional Real Time Strategy game (in fact, the people who made C&C literally invented the RTS genre). Build a base, build some units, destroy the other guys base and all of his units (not necessarily in that order) before he can destroy yours. It's a good formula, and it's worked pretty well since C&C 1 was released in 1995. However, they completely abandoned it when they designed Tiberium Twilight. Your entire base is packed into a giant vehicle called a Mobile Construction Vehicle. It's large, it's incredibly hard to destroy without specialized units, and it respawns after you kill it, meaning it is quite literally IMPOSSIBLE to eradicate the enemy. There are three classes of 'crawler': Offense (specializing in giant tanks), Defense (specializing in giant defensive structures), and Support (specializing in giant aircraft and support powers).

Pros: Your base is incredibly mobile, and very hard to destroy (not impossible, but hard), and you don't have to worry about that pesky resource gathering anymore.

Cons: Tech Levels. You have to collect and process Tiberium in order to advance your Tech tree (assuming you're lucky/dedicated enough to have all the levels unlocked), which is a pain in the neck to do. It's worth the investment if you can keep the enemy off you long enough, but if you spend too much time harvesting for Tech credits you'll end up getting swarmed.

Final Grade: B+

It's a good game (a bit easy, maybe), but... it just doesn't have the Command and Conquer feel to it.

Something about space armadillos.

Almost all awfully amazing astronaut armadillo androids always announce aerial alliteration assembly attractions at antediluvian alluvial air-hockey arenas above an arid austral area accommodating antique Arthurian Australasia, Antarctica, Atlanta, Andorra, and also albino Albania.

I'd like to think many of you might be interested in getting this

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Trust me. Click on the link

The Geek, an Introduction

I feel like I should take a moment to apologize for the lack of posting that's been going on here, but the majority of the bloggers here have been extremely busy with pre-spring break schoolwork and spontaneous parties and raves that we've decided are more fun than posting here every day. I can't promise we're all going to start posting again since I have no idea what the others' schedules are, but I'm going to attempt to keep up.

On to the background of the point of this post: recently I have been getting a lot of gifts (various holidays going by and such, not to mention delayed birthday parties since my family is too big to celebrate every single on individually). The best part of this is not necessarily the awesomeness of the gifts, but the realization that I have finally trained my family to understand geek gift giving. I now have two shirts with chem jokes, several music ones and a few general geek shirts that I find hilarious. I also have the first two seasons of The Big Bang Theory and two entire 2 x 1-foot boxes filled with books. The one I need to talk about today is the half-joking half-serious gift that I got yesterday: A Girl's Guide to Dating a Geek.

I must say that the general idea behind this book (as given by the title) is a great one. Geeky people have their own social laws to live by as opposed to the average "normal" person and it's good to be aware of them. If you're new to the geek community, it's probably smart to study up on it a bit unless you feel like learning it as you go along (which is not that painful really, but to each their own). If you're already a geek, either you know it or you can, in true geek fashion, study it before even bothering to attempt it. I'm sure there are plenty of geeks who have yet to have extensive contact with the outside world (or never will, but that's another story).

All in all, it's a sound topic to write a book about. However, the author did not do a good job at all, I'm sad to say. There are several assumptions they made in regards to the audience of their book and those who it is supposedly describing. First, they assume that the girl reading this is not a geek, has no intention of becoming one, thinks geeks are all socially unacceptable and still inexplicably aims to date one. Hopefully, you can find the flaws in this perspective without me having to point them out. Second, they assume that all geeks are or are seen as largely socially inept, unhygienic, inseparable from their computers (or at least from talking about computer-related things), addicted to caffeine, anti-religious, super-intelligent, have no fashion sense and have the ability to bore anyone within fifty paces in 5 seconds flat and not notice it. While some of this may be true in part, it certainly doesn't show the geek in a good light (which I think is extremely offensive and, overall, dumb since geeks will end up ruling the world one day anyway). Third, the difference they noted between geeks and nerds is that nerds lack the knowledge that geeks have and yet are still purely cerebral beings. Personally, I think of nerds as those who are almost exclusively intellectual IRL while geeks spend so much time on the computer that they make the use of the acronym "IRL" necessary to distinguish the fleeting interruptions by real life into the their usual virtual lifestyle. Fourth, they have a few systems in this book for "training" the geek to not be as geeky, to also do non-geek activities or (they put much emphasis on this) bathe. Now, I don't know of any geeks in my realm of experience who don't bathe and, in the event that they don't and I haven't noticed which is unlikely, I'd rather not know. As to the "training," why on earth do you want to date a geek if you're just going to re-train them to be "normal?" Why not just get a "normal" boyfriend/girlfriend and save yourself the effort?

I could go on forever complaining about the portrayal of geeks in this book, but I'm pretty sure that my fellow geeks who are reading this have a good idea of how annoying that is. The part I'm most amazed at is that the author seems to have decided that geek women (or at least geek women who want to date geek men) don't exist and that all typical women have no clue about anything that falls under the topic of geek knowledge - and apparently this includes higher-level word usage (according to the author, the word "plethora" is only used and understood by the most advanced level of geeks...I guess that makes me one of them). I would like to inform the world that we do exist and we are not nearly as repulsive as the regular world seems to insist we are (that goes for all geeks, not just the women).

I must also address that the depiction of conventions, parties and games that geeks frequently gravitate to is rather negative. No detail was added to the descriptions of the types of conventions at all and there was a long section for each type detailing how to entertain oneself at one of these conventions etc. without participating or, Heaven forbid, seeming interested in anything going on. I never knew that the only uses for a girl at a LAN party were related to the transportation of people, junk food and various forms of caffeine to and from the party or the individuals there. Silly me, I expected that I would participate if I attended. I probably shouldn't tell anyone that I was actually looking forward to being a Weeping Angel for our Dr. Who-themed group for Dragon Con later this year either *gasp* the universe may implode.

There is one good point to this book: the pie table. It is not a table made of pie nor did I incorrectly type "pie chart" - it is a table about different types and amounts of pie. To be precise, it is a table that shows, given certain undesirable but sometimes necessary actions that need to be taken by a geek, what type and how much pie should be awarded to them for performing said actions. Apparently, the author has discovered the nearly-universal geek weakness to pie (which I must say is a relief to me because otherwise this book would have been a complete waste of research time - they did say that they did some "research" whether they did or not). Though this means that, if this table is put in a non-geek's hands, that person may have some limited control over a geek, it also means that the geek community is about to get a ton more pie for doing things that we probably would have to do at some point anyway. I don't see any major drawbacks to this.

As much as I have left to say, I imagine I should stop. I could go on for a thousand pages on this (or any) topic, but I know there would be few left reading it by the end. This text simplified: geeks are awesome, they need not be re-trained to be "normal," they do come in both male and female, and they can always be rewarded with pie.

~The Minister of Silly Posts