Niahak's Place

So I’m even more distracted. But this time, not by Wii (although Smash Bros. Melee is still a common fixture of the room).

Playing Disgaea had me yearning for a simpler time, when I only had to keep track of a few stats rather than trying to keep 8-10 characters relatively high leveled.

A time when I knew more or less what was going on, but where there was enough strategy to keep it interesting.

Dear lord, I’ve started playing Final Fantasy Legend 2 again.

Oh sure, this time it’s in Japanese. So I get where they changed stuff in translation. In fact, I started writing a FAQ for the game – today – because it’s one of the few games where I never really had to consult any myself. Suffice it to say it’s a good game; I’ll leave the longer rant until later.

So why are we playing Smash Bros when we could be playing Wario Ware or Raving Rabbids? I guess it’s because there may be a tournament coming up on campus.

Of course, this is entirely hearsay. From past experience, if there’s a tournament on, say, Saturday, when do we find out and sign up?

Friday. Probably Friday afternoon.

I was thinking about posting up something about my experiences with Japanese baths. I’ll try and get to that tomorrow. I keep meaning to have more content on this site. Three in one day might not be bad.

So I’ve decided to use my “Books” category for once.  And in the same night as a games blog!

I finished a book recently called Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds.  If you’re a fan of science fiction, it’s good stuff.  Even if you’re not as much into the science of things; although there are explanations for several things, they aren’t generally related to the plot.

Anyway, it’s about this assassin named Tanner Mirabel who is tracking a man for unspecified reasons.  His hunt takes him to the formerly-rich planet of Yellowstone, particularly to Chasm City, where the reader begins to find out why Tanner is hunting this person – and why exactly Chasm City has become so desolate.

My brother tells me it’s a spinoff of a larger series, which sounds intriguing.  Chasm City has an amazingly intertwining plot, so it kept me occupied for a good while.  I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something serious (as humor is just about the only thing it lacks).
Now I get to move on to Brust’s Dzur.  If you haven’t heard of Brust, think of a combination of R.A. Salvatore and Roger Zelazny with a few twists.  It’s lots of fun, excitement, adventure, and humor.  I’m looking forward to it.

I’m a bit happier with Disgaea now.  The system looks to have enough depth to be fun, the storyline is more entertaining, and it looks addictive.  Unfortunately for my impending Disgaea addiction, something else came up.

My roommate finally bought 3 more Wii remotes and nunchucks.  And Wario Ware.
Needless to say, we’ve been playing a bit of Rayman, Wario Ware, Monkey Ball, et cetera.  We were hardly playing the Wii at all before; now it’s an almost-constant fixation in the room.  When not playing the Wii, I’ve been playing computer games – Battlefield 1942 and Stepmania – as the TV I generally use has been commandeered for the Wii.

Resistance is futile.  Wii will all be assimilated.

I beat Super Mario RPG yesterday.  I feel kind of bad, because I was rushing through the game a bit.  SMRPG is sort of like Earthbound in that the dialogue varies between tones of sarcastic, more sarcastic, and mildly serious.

So why rush through it?

I borrowed Disgaea from a friend.  Well… More an acquaintance.  I actually don’t remember his name.  But suffice it to say, I temporarily have a copy of Disgaea, that game that half of Anime Club and probably more of the Computer Science students have been ranting about.  So I wanted to try it.  Although it looks like it has an enjoyable enough plot, and a decent enough combat system, I’m still more on the side of my editor at VL.

So I was flipping through my version of Dao De Jing (or Tao Te Ching) last night and I noticed something. Well, something aside from the Wade-Giles romanization, which I still find annoying. The translator put in nifty little explanations of each section, along with notes where a word may have been missing in certain editions, possible alternate meanings, et cetera. What I noticed more, though, was the bias the author had about Laozi and about Taoism in general. Normally, I wouldn’t mind a few references to Christianity, but a particular entry about how in a certain passage Laozi is trying to find God without the teachings of Christ and is therefore failing was a bit much.. I respect those who have dedicated themselves to their religion. Imposing it on others is another idea entirely.