Reus

Hopefully, you and yours had a merry Christmas... I've had a fine one so far, but it's incomplete at the moment (product of my brother's divorce), so I don't have tales of wondrous gifts received to relate for now.  However, that doesn't mean that I'm at-ends for things to play with... this is, after all, also the season for cheap games, via sales on XBox Live, Steam, and other sources.  One such game that I can recommend as "worth checking out" would be Reus, a peculiar take on the "god-game" genre that comes back every few years.

In Reus, you play the role of a small barren world, looking to flourish with life, especially human life.  To aid in this goal, you command four titans (which I'll call Ocean, Mountain, Forest, and Swamp), each of which starts with a limited set of abilities they can use.  For example, one of the first things you will end up doing is using Ocean to build an ocean, one of the other three to prepare some adjacent habitable territory, then seeding that territory with something "of interest" to people to get a settlement to start up.  Settlements are key to this game... the humans that live there come up with projects they want to pursue on their own, but it's in your best interest to help them along, since completed projects result in "ambassadors" from the humans, which can be used to unlock new abilities for your titans.

You help the humans by adding new patches of resources to the area within their settlements, or modifying/mutating already existing resources... and those resources interact with each other in various ways.  For example, one of the first things you're likely to run across in a forest settlement is a project that requires a significant amount of food to complete.  To pursue that, you could use Ocean's "domestic animals" ability to deposit some chickens, or you could use Forest's "edible plants" ability to deposit some blueberries... or you could do both, and get a bonus for the chickens from the blueberries... or you could plant more blueberries, then use another of Forest's abilities to convert a patch into strawberries, significantly increasing the food output of the blueberries... or do all three, or work out other combinations based on what your giants are able to do, and the space they have to do it in.

Of course, if it were all simple and easy like that, it wouldn't be much of a game, just min/max your way to victory... but of course, these are humans you're dealing with.  Give them too much too fast, and they start to get greedy, decide to attack their neighbors, maybe even attack your titans themselves.  You can mitigate this somewhat, with resources that produce Awe or Danger in addition to their other benefits, but your best bet is to control the rate of growth of those settlements.  Still, sometimes it's necessary to mete out a little punishment, and Mountain and Swamp have the tools to do that... heck, sometimes it's even worthwhile to dole out some not-entirely-merited punishment, such as when one town is trying to build you a sacrificial altar, where part of the completion cost is the destruction of a neighboring town.  Of course, it's your world, so you make the call as to whether that's the "right" thing to do (in my case, I passed when it was a sacrificial altar, but when I had a druid go mad and start down the path to mad science, I helped him along with that).

That's the gameplay in a nutshell... but there are two more items of note.  First is that this game has an "achievements" system, which actually does something... in this case, unlocking achievements actually unlocks new abilities for future games.  Second is that the "standard" game has a time limit attached, so, for example, you have 30 minutes of game time to complete what you want to complete, before your titans run out of steam... you have the ability to pause the game while you're plotting and planning, so it's not a burden.  Rather, it's somewhat refreshing having a strategy game that will stop for you after an hour or two of play (unless of course you decide to continue in Free Play mode, where you don't earn achievements... again, that's a call for you to make).  All in all, I've thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game so far... I'd say give it a go, even more so if you find it on sale again.

Another company for the no-buy list: LG

Not that I've bought a lot of LG gear in the past (off the top of my head, I know I've bought one of their phones before), but I've always thought of them as a relatively decent and inexpensive brand, keeping them fairly high-up on the list of possibilities should, say, my TV decide to fail me.  No longer... not when their gear is configured to spy on you, doubly no when it doesn't listen when you tell it to stop.

I'm sorry, but is it too much to ask that, when selling me a product, you sell me a simple product, not a trojan horse to spy on my activities?  If your company's answer to that simple question is "yes", I'd suggest you look for employ elsewhere... especially in these post-Snowden days, people are a little extra-touchy about that sort of thing.

Edit:  Apparently, it's not just channels and the contents of any USB drives plugged into the TV that's being reported home... now, news that they're apparently scanning any "shared" drives on your network, and reporting file data there as well.  So... triply no?

Ascend!

Wow, two months since my last post, eh?  I blame Animal Crossing, which I'm still getting entirely too much mileage out of.  It's the first time in a long time that I've had a game for a system get a good enough grip that, while I know there are other games I'd like to try out, I won't even give them a look because it'll cut into the playtime of my current game.

Still, man cannot live by the small 3D screen alone (not if he wants to preserve what's left of his eyesight, at least)... so, if you're on XBox360 with a "gold" account, I'll say that you could do worse than to check out Ascend: Hand of Kul.  It's a free-to-play beat-em-up, so the mechanics are fairly simple... and, unlike some free-to-play games, it's quite playable without ponying up cash, if you don't mind being a scavenger (which is how I tend to play this sort of game anyways).

The premise behind the game, in a nutshell:  the old gods are mostly gone, except for one that entered the mortal realm, got corrupted, and is now a mindless Titan, feeding on the populace and spawning unpleasant children like trolls, ogres and such.  Three new gods have arisen, each of which wants to dominate the world, each of which wants to eliminate the Titan in furtherance of that goal.  Since they don't want to suffer the same fate as the Titan, they employ beings called Caos, 5-story-tall humanoid things that fight with over-sized weaponry to eliminate the Titan's children, claim territory for their god by desecrating altars and destroying shrines, and occasionally fight among themselves to try and take what others have earned... in case it wasn't clear, you play as one of those Caos.

Two mechanics are in play that make this slightly more than just an average beat-em-up.  First, taking a page from Demon Souls/Dark Souls, while you're playing in your own world, you get to see, as color-coded ghost-forms, other people online playing the same area you are now... handy, since, if you see them getting rag-dolled around, you can guess there's something large an nasty about to show up, but you can also target them for "blessings" and "curses", items you can find or buy to, for example, boost their run speed, or have them beset by giant wolves.  Second, there's Ascension, the reason behind the name of the game... basically, you have a level cap, and a level at which you can Ascend.  When you Ascend, you basically cast off your current form (after possibly saving some items for your successor), which goes off to eternally serve the god you were working for by trying to take over territory from other players... in the meantime, you decide whether you want to keep working for your current god or choose one of the others (and of course, they'll all try to bribe you to get/keep you on their side), then you re-incarnate, with higher Ascension and cap levels.

It's really a pretty simple game, but it's got that "just a little more" factor that's the mark of a truly good game... plus, it forces you to make choices, whether that's "I'd really like to have that sword, but I want to improve this spell first" (which, for those so inclined, you could assuage with a little cash transaction), or "I'm halfway through this dungeon, and somebody's attacking one of my sites, but if I leave now I'll have to start the dungeon over from scratch, without the treasure chests resetting!"  If you've already got XBox Live Gold, it's a free game... at the price, it's easily worth giving a shot.

Happy Labor Day... how about a little simulated labor?

First off, since it's in the title of the post, a happy Labor Day to one and all.  Never hurts to take a day to reflect on the people that actually, well, DO things.  I'm a computer guy, so that really doesn't include me, usually (I just tell the computers what I want them to do... kind of like management, but without having to worry about the messy human details too much.  Hopefully, that sentence doesn't remind you of your managers).

Unfortunately, not doing things for work doesn't translate nicely into doing all sorts of things outside of work.  For instance, looks like I haven't posted here in over a month, which, I believe, is the first time that's happened.  It's simplest to say that life has simply gotten in the way a bit... first through my taking a long weekend away from home, then with unfortunate things in the lives of those close to me, which I won't be detailing here.  Long story short, it's thrown my carefully-crafted schedules out of whack, and I'm still catching back up.

Of course, it doesn't help that I've got a new fixation in my life... a little game called Animal Crossing: New Leaf.  In theory, you should be able to get by with as little as a half hour of game play a day... but I manage to get lost in it for much longer, all too often.  The sad thing is, I don't think it necessarily qualifies as a "game", as such... you end up getting made mayor of a small village, where the basic idea is that you own, upgrade, and furnish a house and gather funds to do public works projects.  There's no winning condition, there's no real penalty that I've seen to doing poorly... but the game keeps revealing new facets of itself over time.  It's an insidiously relaxing little thing... if you have a 3DS, you should probably have this game (I broke down and bought a 3DS XL).  If not... well, see if you know someone that does, and give it a go.  You might just find you need to set aside some time to gather bells yourself.

Random bits for a random foreign holiday

So, today's Bastille Day over in France... once upon a time, I actually knew the words to the Marseillaise, but that was many years ago, when I was taking entirely too many French classes.  Side note, I checked that Wikipedia entry I linked to, and the bit I forgot is more than a touch racist... but then, that's a hallmark of the times, I suppose.  Look up the lyrics to "Rule Britannia" sometime, if you have any doubts.  Of course, these days I'm all into Japanese instead, but nowhere near good enough at it to worry about things like song lyrics.

That's a good place to start... since my last post back in October, I've gotten a bit farther in my studies.  First, I switched to a program called Human Japanese, which I found worked better for me, for all it's not "perfect".  Mainly, I expect that's because it's written with the quirks of learning that particular language in mind, rather than trying to force-fit it into software written for learning European languages.  I've gone through all the lessons in that program, and am now finishing up my first of what I expect to be several "review rounds" to help vocabulary stick.  Beyond that, I've acquired a few related books, which help with different aspects of learning this language... I now have a pretty firm grasp on the "simple" writing systems (reading, at least... I still draw the occasional blank when I'm trying to pen a particular character), so I've started in on kanji, where I've got about 70 characters' worth known in detail... out of 2000 or so required to be officially "literate".  Basically, I've almost got as much down as a first-grader in Japan, except that I'm sorely lacking in vocabulary and grammar... oh well, I'll get better, given time.

Time... that's always the trick, isn't it?  Time spent learning Japanese, the better to enjoy the time I spend watching anime... and of course, a new season of simulcasts is starting up over at CrunchyRoll (it's been a while since I last mentioned them... they're still going strong, and there are a few more legal streaming services like theirs out there now, each with their own spin... I do so love true competition).  That cuts into other leisure activities severely, but some things just can't be ignored... in case any of you weren't aware, Steam's summer sale is in full swing, so some amazing PC games that you might have missed/put off are now available for cheap (haven't spent $20 yet, and snagged 4 good-to-pretty-good games so far).  Sure, you might never play them all the way through... but you'll probably get your money's worth in an hour's play anyways.

I think I'll just finish up with a quick recap of Mr. Snowden's exploits... seems appropriate, given the day and all.  Basically, the US tried to extradite him from Hong Kong, but apparently couldn't get their paperwork in proper order in a timely manner, so he was allowed to board a flight to Russia... he's lived there (or, more precisely, in a not-exactly-considered-Russian-territory pre-customs area at one of their airports) for about a month now, while more embarrassing details about what our country's been doing to its citizens and other nations that it should never have been doing continued to leak out.  His current aim appears to be "temporary" asylum in Russia, until more permanent asylum can be attained in one of South America's less-than-US-friendly countries... which should be interesting to see how that unfolds, given the apparent denial of airspace to Bolivia's president on a return trip home from Russia by multiple European countries, on the rumor of Snowden being secretly on-board.

Well, that's the non-work-related things keeping me entertained these days... happy Bastille Day to one and all!

State surveillance continued - the leaker uncloaks

The word 'hero' gets thrown around all too easily these days, so I'm not going to do that.  Let me just say I respect the intelligence and courage of one Edward Snowden, the man apparently behind the leaked documents discussed in my last post.  He has since come forward, acknowledging that he was the source of the leaks, in spite of the likely consequences of doing so... for that, and for doing what he considered right in that light, I have to respect his courage.

Of course, this isn't a perfect case of civil disobedience... for that to be the case, you have to not only defy an unjust system, but make yourself available to that system for the full weight of its retribution, to illustrate the full extent of its injustice to the public at large.  Mr. Snowden instead made sure to get himself to Hong Kong before publicizing his role in this matter.  In doing so, he gains a little potential personal safety, at the cost of being associated with the Chinese, and possibly being accused of working for them.  Still, it's probably the safest English-speaking region he could have chosen to hide out in, both in terms of extradition and other, less-honorable methods of making problems disappear... it's a smart move, for someone who doesn't want to become a martyr, hence the respect for his intelligence.

So, here's to you, Mr. Snowden... I don't envy the path you've chosen, but I envy your ability to choose it.

State surveillance

So, yesterday's big news was the release of a secret court order (there's three words that should never be together) requiring Verizon to turn over records on all their users' calls to the National Security Agency (NSA).  Odds are fair they're not the only company being compelled to turn over such records, but this is proof that it's happening with Verizon, at least.

Not surprisingly, there are those in government who are doing their best to downplay the seriousness of this issue.  The Senate majority leader wants everybody to "calm down", since this has been going on for years.  If anything, that only makes it worse, especially since, according to another senator quoted in that same story, every member of the Senate knew it was happening.

Then, from the other side of the aisle, you have another senator saying that he's a Verizon customer, and he's "glad" that this is happening, continuing on with the ever-popular "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" line of argument... and you know, maybe, as an individual citizen in a free and open state, that might be true.  However, I would expect a senator to put more thought into his own longevity and that of his party than that... if the past decade or two has demonstrated anything, it's that a not-insignificant fraction of politicians at many levels of government have made career-limiting 'indiscretions', and that's just the ones that have gotten caught.  Having full knowledge of who's calling who at all times could be a powerful tool for digging up dirt on such politicians, either to coerce them into doing your bidding or to replace them with someone more pliable... and that pretty well goes for any not-for-life position in government.  If only for that reason, this sort of thing should be stopped permanently and immediately.

Of course, the odds of that happening are vanishingly slim, while the idea of "it's OK, as long as it's to fight the War on Terror" has such a hold on so many... and this, on its own, probably wouldn't be enough to shake that hold.  But then, there's today's news that the NSA is apparently tapping into the servers of multiple popular tech companies, like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple... which at least some of the companies involved are flatly denying at the moment.  Who knows, maybe, just maybe, if enough of these stories come out at the same time, there will be some drive to shut this sort of thing down.  As usual, not holding my breath, but it's a nice thought.