The Unity

I tend to avoid computer games. I don't know why; I've enjoyed them in the past. I loved Starcraft, as I've mentioned before, and Diablo I & II were awesome games. I take another crack at slaying the Lord of Terror every now and then, for old times' sake. Age of Empires was good fun, too. Back in the days when everyone had a dial-up modem, I would dial my friend up, he'd turn on the modem, and we'd play a huge bout. Awesome use of a PA day.

But those games have something in common. They're mouse-based, almost entirely. There's some keystrokes here and there, but you can get by with hardly ever touching the thing. I find keyboards awkward to wield when playing something. FPS's are really awkward for me, usually because my hand twists into a malformed claw within an hour or so. I have the same problem with Metroid Prime 3, truth be told. The whole strafe thing always confuses me. I suck at that style of game, I admit. (The GC Prime games, though, I'm fine with. Strafe is an option, not mandatorily mapped to the joystick. I have a much easier time of it.)

Those ZBoards tempt me, however. I would outfit a powerful rig just for the sheer geeky joy of having a ZBoard with a couple of keysets. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is my largest succubus looming on the horizon. Damn you, epic sword-and-sorcery storylines! Damn you, any-Conan-merchandise-ever-created! (Except for Robert Jordan's miserable fucking excuse for Conan novels. Conan is not a nimble thief modeled after Fabio. He does not crush nubile young princesses to his manly bosom, ravishing them repeatedly in a romantic way. Conan is a slayer of men. He trods the thrones of men beneath his jeweled sandals, grinding the bones of his foes into powder. Goddamn you to hell, Robert Jordan. You son. Of. A bitch.)

So imagine my glee this past weekend. I discover the old RPG milestone of Fallout is entirely mouse-based. I torrent the shit out of it, and have some fun killing radscorpions. I clear out a raider camp (to absolutely no gain, I should add. Shady Sands is a cheapass motherfuckin' town, I tell you what.), and realize I have just under two months left to save my Vault from an uncomfortable thirst. So I follow up on the clues I have, discover Vault-12 is buried beneath Zombie Town, aaaaand I've apparently skipped almost half the goddamn game.

What the fuck, man? What kind of asshole builds into the game the ability for the player, at level 3, to bypass the main quest completely and wind up knee deep in the final quest? Jesus. Thank God I have old save files.

Thanks!

Thank you, Star Fox: Assault. You're a fun game, and I do enjoy playing you. The mix of infantry, armored corps, and aerial gameplay is seamless and absolutely the most fun I've had lately with a new game. (I know it's old, but it's new to me, so fuck off.)

However. I would appreciate some way of understanding where things are. The radar is not always helpful. Rogue Squadron II had the radar show the elevation of enemies, which let me know exactly where I needed to go. Your radar is, how shall I put it... fucking retarded?

Also, the Landmaster is absolutely no good to help my allies when they're being chased in their Arwings. It just fires too goddamn slow, so I keep losing that dumb bitch Fox married. Maybe you shoulda stayed in the kitchen, Krystal, instead of deciding to be an inept fighter pilot.

Other than that, I love you, Star Fox: Assault. I just wish I could choose to play as Falco in the single-player campaign if I wanted.

Kefka

I had a nice long post about playing Final Fantasy VI, but Blogger decided to be shitty as fuck and delete it right out of my edit-window while trying to save. Thanks, Blogger!

Anyway. Let's try this again.

I'm playing Final Fantasy VI now, as well. If you've played it before, you will understand my hatred of fighting Kefka in the mines at Narshe. There's no warning that he's coming, and essentially no way to grind ahead of time once you realize he's showing up.

I don't mind grinding. If the game has a fun combat system, grinding can be the best part. It's even better when the game you're playing has a recognizable dungeon stucture, so you can prepare for the boss battles by grinding the whole level over and over again. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't really see this boss battle coming.

You go into the mines to find the Esper from the start of the game. While you're in there, expecting that your boss battle will be with the powerful magical being, Kefka shows up with twelve squadrons of men, who you proceed to fight. Obviously, you can opt to not fight all of his goons, but I always do. When you get to Kefka, however, he's a monstrosity with over 3000HP. He slays your little sub-group, presumably by casting Ice 2 every second round, and his health resets.

This means, obviously, that if you didn't structure your groups properly at the beginning of this battle, Kefka takes his massive, uncircumsized cock, and shoves it roughly into your ass, repeatedly, until you die of massive internal bleeding. I could have set my teams up the way GameFAQs suggests. One group containing the swordsman Bastin, the renegade General Juka, King Colt's brother Morse, and irritatingly flimsy protagonist Terra. The other, presumably, containing King Colt, Momo the wildling boy, and John Locke the incompetant thief. This sounds great, until you realize one group has both healers, all the powerhouse characters, and the magical lightning rod. So your other group gets to spend all its time using potions in between rounds of mediocre damage. That's wonderful! Just how I want to spend a battle; constantly healing.

Speaking of healing. You're tasked in this same level to protect some guy. Mannon or Mandon or Bandon or something like that. When he was in your party, he could heal awesomely. One move and he'd give everyone an extra 200HP. But now, all he can do is tell you to keep people away from him. How about you heal my parties, you fucker? That'll keep the badguys away from you.

Les Enfants Terrible

I'm playing through MGS: The Twin Snakes again. Every time I run into a boss encounter, I pull up short.

I know what's coming. I know I can beat them. However, I still have this nearly paralyzing distaste of fighting tanks and helicopters and stupid bitches I can't see hiding in a tower somewhere.

Fuck you, Sniper Wolf. Fuck you to death. Snake Eater did the sniper battle so much better than this, it's actually painful to play this one again.

Looking forward to fighting Vulcan Raven again, though. I seem to recall he was fun, if just a tad terrifying.