A Bureaucracy of One

One Moment of Perfect Beauty - Queenstown Water

Queenstown, NZ via my friend, Julia Voye.

Play The Game - Done vs. Finished

Look, I play video games.  I don't play lots of them, but I do play them alot, and sometimes I can even be arsed enough to blog about the experience.  This is one such time.

When playing a game, when is it done vs. when is it finished?  Put a better way, when are you done with a game vs. when are you finished with it?

I asked myself this question the other day after getting to 98.8% Completion on Lego: Batman, and then getting frustrated with the next to last level.  I was trying to collect all one hundred 10K studs hidden in the Wayne Manor, but was short the last one.  After nearly an hour of frustration I finally turned off my Wii and went to do something else.

Only to turn my Wii back on ten minutes later to try again.  

Thus, twenty minutes later I had finally completed my first game in...well, Lego: Batman is possibly the first game I've 100% Completed since the advent of bonus content.  Castlevania:SoTN doesn't count, because while I did get the 100.2% map completion, I never did manage to get all the weapons and items.  I certainly never got 100% on Kingdom Hearts, FFX, Drake's Fortune, Metroid Prime, Psychonauts, Metal Arms, or any of the other games I've played on 32-bit systems and higher.

However, I beat all those games and consider my time with them to be finished.  That when the credits rolled I feel as though I had gotten a full and satisfying experience from my time with the game.

Then there are the games that I am done with, but never actually beat.

Final Fantasy X-2.  God of War II.  Pokemon Pearl.  Final Fantasy VII.  Final Fantasy VIII.  Final Fantasy XII.  And others that slip my sieve-like memory at the moment.  These are all games that gave me the opposite feeling when I played them.  With FFX-2 and FFXII, it was a feeling of apathy that killed the game for me.  When given the choice of playing those games, or staring at a wall, wall-staring won hands down.  With FFVII, it was a growing sense of annoyance that did me in.  I had gotten to the end game, but a growing realization that I didn't really care for Cloud, Tifa, and the rest of the emo-crusaders made me put the game on the shelf and forget about it.  

Pokemon Pearl is an odd one, because while I completed the story mode, I gave up long before becoming a true Pokemon master.  Blame boredom for that one.  The prospect of grinding for another sixty hours to collect all those little freaks, and make the Sinnoh region my bitch really didn't appeal to me.  That, and I got Lock's Quest in the mail.  Now that is a fantastic game!

As for God of War II, well, you can read all about my problems with that game in the link above.  For the lazy, the short version is that Kratos is a dick, and I hope he suffers for eternity.

So, what are some of yours?*

*Question is almost entirely rhetorical since almost no one reads this.

In Chats Veritas

Friend: smartass

Me: yes, well, if no one else will appreciate my genius, then I might as well bask in my own glory

Friend: is that a euphamism?

Me: no, but it is a sad statement about my life that it works as one

Friend: hahahah

YiEMB - All Songs Considered II

I was just going through the Youtube playlists I've put together for YiEMB, and it is heartbreaking to see how many videos have been pulled down because the copyright owners have such a dim view of free advertising.  Well, I wonder how long it will be until the three videos featured today are made to vanish!

As with the first All Songs Considered YiEMB, I came to these three songs listening to the All Songs Considered/Live Concerts podcasts. 

The first song is "Ghosts" by newcomer Laura Marling, a young musician whose vocals and lyrics jumped out at me while listening to the SXSW wrap-up show.  Following her is Bat for Lashes performing her single "Sleep Alone" live on Later...with Jools Holland.  Eerie and beautiful, Bat for Lashes (real name Natasha Khan) has a voice whose ethereal quality lends itself vocalizing the dark fantasies in everyone's souls.  Lastly there is Somalia-born rapper K'naan with his ode to his homeland, "Soobax".  I just downloaded his album "The Dusty Foot Philosopher" from eMusic, and man, is it good! 

Paul Simon, The Roots, and Antibalas

While I am not much of a fan of Hulu for a variety of inconsequential reasons (not the least of which is that there is shite to watch on TV anway), and I certainly do not foresee great things coming of Jimmy Fallon's ascension to late night talk show stardom, I have to say that this clip of Paul Simon backed by Late Night's house band The Roots, with Antibalas on horns, performing "Late in the Evening", justifies the existence of both.

Or more simply put...Sweeeeeeet!

via the All Songs Considered Blog

My Proudest Moment This Week

Mauzy Morning as a Picture

In case you were wondering what a mauzy morning might look like, Flickr user Greg from Maine captured this beautiful shot of a scallop dragger at mooring as the sun rises.

Mauzy Monday by The Fables

Bless you CBC!

lyrics and guitar tabs can be found here.

One Moment of Perfect Beauty - Spring Melt

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Look, I play video games. Lots of video games.  And sometimes I even finish one or two of them.  The latest one I saw through to completion was Puzzle Quest: Galactrix on the DS, the long-awaited sequel to the crack-a-licious Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.

Now, normally once I finally beat a game I like to do a review of it to let what few friends I have know what I thought of the game.  However, I'm not going to bother with one for PQ:G as this article on Destructoid says everything I want to say about the game, and maybe says it better.  Oh, and read the comments as well as they add some more depth to the critical mauling the article's author delivers!

If you don't want to bother reading the article, then I'll sum it up for you: don't bother with this game.