I've definitely been neglecting my uploads here (I've been...slightly better on Eka's and Inkbunny), so I figured I'll upload a few things. Certainly not everything; that'd take too long, and I honestly don't have the patience. It'll be a few characters of mine and a few choice commissions I've bought. My attention span will tell what, and how many, end up here.

Edit: Done for now, I think. Hopefully, I'll remember to upload more things BEFORE another 4 years have passed!

I’m not gonna be able to get on messengers for a bit, probably not until laaate on the 25th (if not the 26th), so I’ll wish all my friends a Merry Christmas, and/or a happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other celebration roughly coinciding with the Winter Solstice/end of the Gregorian calendar year!

26 years old~ That is all.

Gonna upload some of my more recent commissions...Maybe a recent story or two. I HAVE been sorta neglecting FA lately.

Edit: Done for now. I have plenty more to upload, but don't feel like dealin' with the flood protection.

I really wanted to like this game. I really did. And I love a lot of it. For one thing, it's hilarious (The freaking zombies TRASH TALK YOU, among other things). I love a game that doesn't take itself seriously, and few take themselves LESS seriously than this. I love Tara Strong's voice acting (and not just because she uses her Twilight Sparkle voice, honest). And the plot is so, well, over-the-top-stupid and full of "What the FUCK just happened" that I can't help but love it.

But oh, the gameplay. Initially, it's OK..not great, but OK. And then, you encounter Sparkle Hunting.

Sparkle Hunting, you see, is when you kill 3 or more zombies at once. You get a coin/point bonus...and the action completely stops as your character poses with a sparkly background, completely skullfucking any flow the gameplay had. This is a minor annoyance early on, particularly since the zombies are fairly tough, as video game zombies go, so a newbie isn't going to be killing three at once very often. But...well, spoilers ahead.

See, at one point in the Stadium chapter, you get the Chainsaw Blaster ability, which changes your chainsaw into a gun. And shortly afterwards, you have to shoot baseball-themed zombies as your boyfriend (A disembodied head who you shove onto headless zombies to control them) runs the bases three times. And the Chainsaw Blaster is much easier to get Sparkle Hunting with; you have to kill three or more zombies in a short amount of time, rather than all in one shot. And as more zombies appear to attack him, this happens frequently, and thus, completely throws you off, making the segment MUCH more annoying than it should be.

If they had done the smart thing, and just had a little graphic pop up somewhere like every OTHER game with combos, that would've been great. I would have loved this game to death, and probably would still be playing it rather than writing a blog post about it. Sure, the combat could still be a little less clunky, maybe the controls a bit more responsive at times, but none of those are the absolute game breaker 'Sparkle Hunting' is.

 Noctivagus is lookin' for commissions. He's a great, rather fast writer, and with pretty good prices...Highly recommended :3 Go check 'im out!

Got DCUO a while ago, and restarted my account recently to retry it. I was quickly reminded that...I, well, didn't like it much. And yet, I wish I *COULD* like it.

DCUO's problems can, in my mind, mostly be attributed to it being an MMO. If Sony/DC had taken the concept, and made it a true single-player game (with online co-op/versus, perhaps), it could have been a truly great game, rather than the mediocre-at-best MMO. My usual gripe about MMOs applies, of course; you never really feel like an actual hero or villain, you just feel like one of thousands of pawns. They could have polished the graphics a bit more, too, and maybe made the fighting system a bit less dull.

But it IS fun flying/running around the huge cities of Gotham and Metropolis, and the character creation, as well as the variety of combat styles, is nice (Although the body-types could use a bit more variety...again, something perhaps fixable in a single-player game). And the fact that many of the characters use their DCAU voice actors is just awesome.

It isn't a terrible game, but of all the MMOs I've tried, this one is the most disappointing, if only because of the potential that was wasted when it was made an MMO instead of single-player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCbD8nsxcd8

Outdoor fuckin' starts today~

That is all c:

It sucks, but I don't blame Dragoneer for it; I blame the douchebags who think art of a fictional child is as bad as real child porn. Are fictional depictions of murder, rape, and crime in general illegal, even though the acts depicted are harmful in real life? If so, someone had better tell our entire fucking entertainment industry.

All in all, a fairly good game so far, in my opinion. Only one thing to complain about so far...and that is the *fucking* '100 percent synchronization' bonuses. These are objectives you can complete during a mission (usually 'don't be detected', or 'kill the target in a certain way' or similar), and that's fine, if a little difficult at times.

The annoying part is, if you fail the bonus objective in some way during a mission, if you want to retry, you *have* to start the mission over. There are checkpoints if you die, but if you die and restart from the checkpoint, the bonus objective still counts as 'failed'. So, if you're ten+ minutes into a mission, and you screw up just enough to fail your bonus objective, you can either just take the lost points, or start aalllll the way at the beginning. Whoever decided to leave out a 'restart from checkpoint' option needs to be kicked.

Just finished watching the movie 'Animalympics' for the first time in...Oh, hell, at LEAST a decade, if not a bit more. I was half expecting it to be lame and all that, thanks to the Nostalgia goggles...but at least I think it held up pretty good! Sure, it was a bit cheesy and goofy, but it's not *trying* to be anything else.

It and The Great Mouse Detective (thank you, Miss Kitty) were probably the two biggest influences that started me on the path to furrydom...Mmm, Kit Mambo.

I do have two gripes, though:

1: What in the heck was the otter, Dean Wilson, smoking before his dive? Anyone who's seen this movie knows *exactly* what I mean.

2: Why the HELL is it not on DVD in America?! Or outside of freaking Germany, for that matter?

Yeah, yeah, I know it's pretty damn late, since the sequel's out in less than a week, but fuck off. Not a major review, anyway, just a couple notes.

A: Between this, Aliens vs Predator, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, I'm discovering a possibly-unhealthy fascination with scaring the motherlovin' crap out of random enemies. More than once, I've gotten in a fight with 8 or so guards, only for most of them to practically pee themselves and run off once I dispatch the first few.

B: Yahtzee's review mentioned the money system as the game's most 'prize-winningly vestigial' feature. It seems that Ubisoft noticed this, and decided to, in the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' DLC, attempt to fix it. Unfortunately, they decided to 'fix' it by adding a feature that is even MORE vestigial; the Sprint-Jump, where you dash off a springboard and are catapulted slightly further than you could normally jump. I can see absolutely no use for these damn things; they're in fixed locations so their versatility is extremely limited, and they ONLY serve to take a few seconds off, like, one or two chases in the DLC story, which are far from impossible (or even particularly difficult) to complete without 'em. Plus, Ezio looks like a complete idiot when he goes flying off, flailing like a moron. The 'mechanic' doesn't improve the game, nor does it worsen it; it's just completely *pointless*.

C: I really wish AC:II would EXPLAIN why certain missions are instantly-failed if you are seen. During one of the DLC missions, I was trying to get on a boat, and let's just say I very nearly broke my controller and/or a convenient nearby window. There was absolutely NO adequately explained reason that I couldn't just pick off a couple guards, then fight the rest normally.

First, let me say that I enjoyed Fable and Fable 2. Sure, they had their flaws, but I always managed to play them through to the end.

Now, Fable III was fun up to a point. The combat was as fun as ever, and mixing spells is interesting and neat. I wish the much-hyped shapeshifting weapons actually affected gameplay, of course, but it's a Peter Molyneux game, so letdowns like that are to be expected. The job minigames (or should I say minigame) suck, though, since they're *ALL THE SAME DAMN MINIGAME*, just with different animations in the background. One wonders what the point is to HAVING more than one job in the game if you're not going to make them any different. And the Sanctuary replacing the Pause screen just seemed clunky and honestly fairly silly; having John Cleese in there was amusing for a bit, but his repetitive comments quickly got on my nerves.

Still, it was fun enough...to a point. And I can put my finger *precisely* on the point where it stopped being fun: The moment you're crowned king. (That's not a spoiler, that part was a major part of the promotional stuff).

You see, being a king is freaking *boring*, and if you're trying to be good, the game actually punishes you by taking massive amounts of money from your treasury. There are also no more quests outside of the castle (or at least none that I saw), so there's really nothing *to* do besides the various 'royal duties', which, so far, merely consist of 'go here, watch cutscene, then pick a 'good' choice or a 'bad' choice'.

I confess, I haven't played more than a couple in-game days as a king, so maybe it improves. To me, though, it feels like the game screeched to a halt so fast that it threw me off.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention why I don't just take the 'evil' choices as a king. For starters, I'm a sap, and I've been playing as a 'good guy'. And even if I wasn't, most of the 'bad' choices I've had to make pissed off LIKEABLE characters, and have you agreeing/helping Reaver, the biggest prick in the Fable universe. You heard that right. Not only has Reaver escaped bloody death AGAIN in Fable III, but you have the fucker WORKING FOR YOU. And the worst you can do to him is not take his advice. Seriously, Lionhead, let us kill that smug, sick, obnoxious prick already, please?

So I was playing L4D's Death Toll campaign, at the start of the Church chapter, and a Tank spawned. I only spotted him as I went around a corner, and he hurled a certain bit of equipment at me, incapacitating me.

I wasn't recording, unfortunately, but I figured I'd put the experience to music. *Ahem*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juvKrcMWXKc

This is the song, written for the trainyard.
This is the fight, Tank and Francis.
HE TRIIIIIED TO KILL ME WITH A FORKLIIIFT.
Olé!

FUCK YOU UNLIMITED HAZAMA YOU CHEAP OVERPOWERED PIECE OF CRAP

Well, I preordered (and received) Starcraft 2, only to have the installer tell me that I don't meet the specifications. My fault for not checking, of course, but I've been meaning to get a new computer anyway, and I've been saving for it, so that problem should be fixed soon.

More recently, I've been playing a few games. I had to replace my 360 (Drive stopped reading discs, cleaning didn't help and I was out of warranty), so I got the Arcade version, since I already had a hard drive. It came with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (which I already own), and Viva Piñata (which I don't). I enjoyed Viva Piñata quite a lot, enough that I bought the sequel, Trouble in Paradise. Both are amusing, but I don't have enough interesting things to say about them (other than griping about, say, Professor Pester and certain Sours), so I won't.

The game I really want to bring up right now is the recent XBLA release, Limbo. Good god that is an awesome game. Short, but immersive and VERY atmospheric and scary. The story isn't much...Aside from the title screen and a single word in neon at certain points in the game, there really IS none in the game. You're a boy, trying to save his sister; that's about the gist of it. I've heard it compared to Braid, another game on XBLA with stylized graphics and a minimalist story, but Braid bored the hell out of me, while Limbo kept my interest to the end.

Some puzzles require a bit of clever thinking, and there are a few traps that are quite sneaky. From the first time you encounter one of those traps, you'll be quite paranoid, and rightfully so.

And the ending...Well, I won't tell you about that and ruin it! If you have XBLA, I'd definitely recommend Limbo. It's short, but great.

I got the Special Edition version off Steam, since I enjoyed the first. And it was a fun game.

Then, the ending came.

What. The. Flying. FUCK.

To Red Dead Redemption: You're a fun game but...
FUCK
YOUR
GODDAMN
COUGARS

First: Lance's remixed battle theme is fucking awesome.
Second: Juggler Irwin is FUCKING CREEPY. Anyone who's gotten a call from that freak knows what I mean. Friggin' stalker.

Edit- Third: Suicune, if you don't stay in the fucking ball when you're at ~1 health and asleep, I will find a way to give you a gender so I can kick you square in the balls >:C

Edit Edit: Raikou...How the FUCK did you run away when you were asleep? >:C <- ANGRYFAEC

I'm playing through SoulSilver at this point, and so far, I have one specific gripe:

WHY in the name of all that is holy, did Nintendo feel the need to step *backwards* in the 'trainer rematch' department? The Pokegear's phone is useless and annoying; why couldn't Nintendo have, say, left the Vs. Seeker in, but kept the Phone in for extra stuff (like the player-character's mother calling you when she buys crap..where does that woman SHOP, anyway?)? Being completely unable to find a rematch (seriously, Joey, I do not give a flying fuck about your Rattata unless you want me to beat it up) with random trainers makes training a pain in the ass.

A'ight, here goes another review-ish-thing. Endless Ocean: Blue World (known as Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep outside of the US).

Again, all in all, I enjoyed this game. The controls took a little getting used to (but then, I hadn't played my Wii in age before I got the game), and, as I'm used to hi-def Xbox 360 graphics, the graphics suffered a bit at first.

As time went on, though, those complaints evaporated. Sure, on the 360 or PS3, there would've been better graphics, but they're still pretty good, in my opinion. And while the classic controller controls suck hard, the Wiimote controls are easy to get used to, and nicely functional.

I do have some complaints about the story, though. In the first Endless Ocean, most of the 'excitement' came from discovering new, spectacular creatures and areas. This game blew it's 'awe inspiring sea-animal' load in the opening cutscene, with the huge pods of whales. There are still some great moments, but I still think the first Endless Ocean had the most epic moments (Discovering the Great Mother, and entering the Abyss area. Sperm whale + Benedictus = WIN.)

Another gameplay addition I'd rather have gone without are the 'dangerous' animals. Ok, so completely harmless Great Whites and such in the first game could stretch one's suspension of disbelief, but the dangerous animals (sharks in particular) in the sequel don't fix that. They don't bite; instead, the 'dangerous' sharks prefer to just tail whip you and knock out a couple bars of your air. There's no real danger, particularly if you've upgraded your equipment so air is hardly an issue.

Of course, with the pulsar came a 'boss fight' at the end, against a few goblin sharks and one bigass goblin shark. It even had the whole 'escape a collapsing base' thing (though more delayed than in most games, and actually explained) at the end.

I do like the different environments, though, rather than the first game's single sea with an inexplicably varied ecology (Polar bears? In what's supposedly the South Pacific, if I recall? Really?). Wish there were more of them; the 'freshwater environments' were frewquently mentioned in previews, but there's only really one, rather linear one. Not much exploring to do.

Anyway, griping aside, I enjoyed it immensely. Hope there's a sequel, particularly if Nintendo's next console is HD.

I recently bought the second Endless Ocean game, and I thought I'd comment on it and the previous game.

First, I loved the original game to bits. Very relaxing and fun, with some truly epic moments (The Sperm Whale appearing from the Abyss area, to the loudest, booming part of Benedictus? HELL YES). The controls worked well enough, particularly for a Wii game, and the story was relatively interesting.

I've not played much of the second game yet, but I do have one major complaint already. The Pulsar. The Wiimote controls, while suitable for the main moving-about bits, are NOT suited to quickly turning and shooting at PO'd marine life, and the Classic controller's controls are even clunkier, IMO.

As for the series as a whole, though, there *is* one flaw; The graphics.

Oh, sure, they're pretty, particularly for a Wii game, but I have a large HDTV. And the Wii's graphics suffer *badly* in HD. I wish someone'd make an Endless Ocean (or similar light, relaxing, explore-y type) game on one of the other consoles, something with little to no real conflict, just pretty scenery and exploring.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of the Alien or Predator movies...only 'cuz I've never seen 'em. I've read about the franchises, and I used to have a couple of the old toys, but I'm not exactly AvP's target audience.

Still, I, honestly, found it to be a good game, particularly the Xenomorph story. Hunting the marines, hiding in holes, scaring the *shit* out of everyone...It was hella fun. The Predator and Marine segments were fun, too, but the Xenomorph campaign was, in my opinion, far superior (gameplay wise, anyway).

I do think they should, say, talk to the designers of Batman: Arkham Asylum, though. The Xenomorph campaign did feel a lot like the stealth sections from that game, with a major difference; the marines only have a few lines that they say no matter the situation. In Arkham Asylum, you could hear the enemies freaking out as they were picked off, and I think that would make Marine-hunting a hell of a lot more satisfying.

The Predator campaign was okay; the stalking of the Marines wasn't as fun, because, well, you could take them in a firefight if you were careful, while Xenos are pretty 'squishy'. Still, the weapons were neat; combining the proximity mine with the 'distract' ability is always good for a laugh. I did find the Frisbee o' Death (I forgot the name) to be a bit hard to use, personally, and the spear felt like something of a game breaker.

The Human campaign...well, it was pretty generic, gameplay-wise. I will give it something, though; reviews have mentioned the lack of an 'iron sight' (except on the scoped rifle), and I'll forgive that...somewhat. After all, your main enemies are xenomorphs; they get up in your face before you have the *time* to aim, so firing wildly from the hip is all you're gonna do anyway.

Now, for the stories...it's all flipped around. The Xeno campaign has a much weaker story; basically "Escape here, kill marines and the occasional Predator.". The Predator story is, once again, okay; I'm sure if I was more familiar with the series, I'd be more interested. The Marine campaign has the best story, if only because, well, you hear more of it.

Another complaint I've heard is that the levels are often too enclosed. Which, during the Xeno campaign, and parts of the Marine campaign, is a *good* thing. The wide-open parts of the Xenomorph campaign are, in my opinion, the weakest parts of it. Cramped corridors with vents and plenty of hidey-holes are the Xenos' home turf. Wide spaces work well for the Predators; jumping around to a good vantage point, or to escape after being spotted is quite fun.

Anyway, that's about it from me.

Ok, after finishing Mass Effect 2, and replaying Mass Effect, what's my favorite?

Well, personally, it's hard to say.

Story: I like both stories, really, but Mass Effect's climax tips it for me. It is a HELL of a lot more epic than ME2; I, personally, figured ME2's final boss was pretty generic; after all, how many games have giant humanoid bosses with glowing weak points? Plus, Mass Effect had the massively epic Battle for the Citadel cutscenes, and the whole level leading up to the final boss (climbing up the side of Citadel Tower, while Sovereign looms overhead) kicked much ass. Getting into the Collector Base in Mass Effect 2 was awesome (and I liked having the ability to influence it with the upgrades), sure, but the rest of the level feels pretty bland, squad-choices aside.

Gameplay: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 both have their good points here. ME2's combat was more fluid and intuitive, but I liked Mass Effect's exploration more. Sure, the Mako had some issues, but exploring large(ish) areas and finding secrets/trinkets/random interesting objects (Space Cows!) is loads more fun to me, compared to slowly scanning planets for resources and occasionally finding a small outpost to visit. On the other hand, I like how Mass Effect 2 shows your exploration progress; it creates an unwritten goal to explore all the available areas.

Now, as for my last journal. Having replayed Mass Effect 1, I'll edit my complaints. The loading screens aren't so bad, and, while it might not make much sense story-wise, needing to find 'heat clips' makes combat much more intense. I do wish the Citadel, or any of the 'hub' worlds, was larger, though.

Now, here's hoping that Bioware learns from both games, and incorporates the good parts of each into Mass Effect 3, to make a truly epic game.