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Monday, May 31, 2004
Monday, May 31, 2004
Derren Brown nothing. The one thing that makes the seance show freaky is that my television's been screwing up for weeks now and the picture I got when the girl supposedly channeled the 'spirit' looked a little like this:
To be fair, it makes stuff like Eastenders - where there are plenty of close-ups - much more entertaining.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 22:34
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Thursday, May 27, 2004
I've just gone back to Super Mario 64 again. The feeling of total control in that game has yet to be bettered, imo. The main plus it has over Sunshine is that the environments promote a lot more play and experimentation - you find yourself creating your own minigames and challenges based on them. Can I get from one end of the garden to the other, just by backflipping across the tops of the trees?
Mario's an absolute dream to move around, and the fact that they did it all with just three buttons is astounding. And the way you use those buttons to pull of the different moves - the nearest I can think of in terms of the buttons' relationship to the on-screen movement is the Street Fighter series. Just as a quarter-rotation towards *is* a fireball (what you're doing with your fingers translates directly into the animation on the character), a backflip in Mario 64 *is* a backflip. Alright, so maybe not exactly the same - your fingers aren't doing a backflip over the pad - but you feel yourself building up to it as you crouch, then spinning and twisting through the air as you spring into action.
Just the simple action of running around in circles is a joy, because the momentum is judged perfectly. I really don't think any other game has even matched up to SM64's feeling of complete possession of a character.
And of course, the funny thing is that hardly anybody, myself included, could get the hang of this new-fangled analogue control when the game first came out. That it became so intuitive so quickly further proves just how spot-on it was/is.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 14:51
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Stoatieblog. Emptystoatieblog.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 13:53
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
There's a NY Post piece here about Greasy Kid Stuff. It's a pretty shit article about a pretty awesome radio show. Hey ho.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 18:10
Monday, May 24, 2004
Monday, May 24, 2004
I seem to have downloaded a variant of the deeply offensive TOPText scumware, which I'm struggling to get rid of. Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D aren't killing it, and the standard ways of getting shot of TOPText aren't working either. Any useful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
And yeah, I've already started using Firefox.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 13:55
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Sunday, May 23, 2004
No, I'd never heard of it before, either.
(Discovered through the SHMUPS forum.)
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 16:10
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Okay. I've already realised that there's a fairly simple solution to my paradox, but I'll still break it down. You might want to make sure you've got a coffee while I try to explain this. Backstory first. Three games, three storylines...
ONE
We're taking the starting point of the timeline as the N64 game Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. The reason why should become clear as we go on. The hero of the story is a kid called Link. As the game starts, he's about seven or eight years old and the world he lives in - Hyrule - though happy, is starting to feel the hint of something evil coming. About a quarter of the way into the game, Link's whisked forwards through time. He's suddenly seventeen and Hyrule's been destroyed. Its citizens have taken refuge in outskirt towns. The main city is a place of ghouls. Dark clouds cover the sky. We find out that his temporal journey has been brought about by the protectors of the land, and that he's been brought to a point where evil has already succeeded in taking over because it's only at this age that he's strong enough to fight it. He's the world's only hope, and always ahs been, but he would have been just too weak to do anything about it previously.
So anyway, he defeats the evil. Didn't you just know he would? As the game ends, he's sent back in time by those who brought him forwards so that he can live his entire life without missing those ten years that he previously jumped. He's seven or eight again.
TWO
We're now at the beginning of Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. We know that this follows on from the end of OoT because of one important scene in this new game - a flashback to one small event. So we're certain that this is the same Link and that the new game takes place just after OoT finishes. Link looks about the same age as he was then: seven or eight.
The intro has Link riding a pony - Epona - through some woods. He's knocked off and Epona is stolen by some kid in a freaky mask. The horse thief then rides her through a swirling portal and disappears. Link jumps up and follows them through. When he pops out the other side, he finds himself in a new world. Bits and pieces are similar to the areas in OoT, and certain characters seem remarkably familiar. This time, the basic storyline can't be boiled down to a simple 'Good vs Evil', but it's so rich and special that I don't want to spoil it for those of you who've not yet played it, but might. For the purposes of this post, it doesn't really matter. Suffice to say that everything comes good in the end (in one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful ways I've ever seen a game plot unfold). The events of MM take place in just three days of story-time.
THREE
Now we're onto the latest release in the series, the GameCube's Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This is the first time where the intro has actually alluded to previous titles and an overarching series timeline. The events of OoT are described briefly as "Evil rises, takes over the land, hero arrives, saves the world". Certain references make the OoT link (no pun intended) obvious - Link is described as the 'Hero of Time', the title he was given as a seventeen year old in OoT, for example.
What makes this intro special is that it's shown as a historical manuscript. This is Hyrule's history as written by the people of Hyrule. As such, there's no mention of the time travelling stuff. Makes sense - there's no reason why the regular inhabitants of the world should know about it. There's also no mention of the events in MM - again, it makes sense that they'd be unaware of them. The older games in the series (those not mentioned here - the NES, SNES and GameBoy ones) are explained by having Link reincarnate. Every time the world is threatened, a green-clad hero has come to its aid.
But this is also where things get confusing. The manuscripts tell that after the evil was defeated at the end of OoT by seventeen year-old Link, the land was once again happy and free. That is, until some years later, when it returned, bigger and badder than before. The people prayed for the hero to return, but he never came. Eventually, they abandoned Hyrule to its fate. Wind Waker then starts. It's a world of small islands on a huge sea, in a time many, many long years after the previous games (we're talking centuries here). The new Link is one of the reincarnations of the Hero - this is his only link to the one from OoT and MM. Some time into the game, we discover that the Hyrule of history still exists, but *underneath the ocean*. It's been placed there to seal away the evil that eventually over-ran it. That evil reawakens and the rest of the game concerns itself with its defeat.
That's a very basic explanation of the three games that contain some element of continuity, but I think I've covered all the stuff pertinent to the crappy drawing below.
So, can you see where the paradox comes from now? Once Link has saved the world in OoT as a teenager, he goes back to his life as a child again. A few months later, he ends up in MM. But what happens when he then grows up to be a teenager? WW's intro tells us that the events of OoT still occur, which means that his child self from the beginning of that game must still get transported forwards through time. But, because he's then sent back, he's also allowed to grow up properly.
So the paradox is that when the evil makes its first attempt at destruction of Hyrule, we have two seventeen year-old Links in existence at the same time. As described in the hasty diagram.
But yeah, I've since realised that not only is the paradox not a problem, but also that I can explain the non-appearance of Link the second time the evil comes to call. Quite simply, the world of MM is in a different dimension. Hence the portal that Link travels through at the beginning of that game. Once he's there, he never finds a way out.
All this came about, by the way, as I was trying to guess how the new Zelda game, recently shown at E3, will fit into continuity. It looks like a return to the world of OoT, which made me think that it might concern the hero's disappearance before the evil's second coming. Which could have been pretty cool, if you think about it - an Empire Strikes Back episode of the Zelda series, where the end sees the hero vanishing and the people having to run from their homes. Because Wind Waker has already shown us that things eventually come right, a downbeat ending could really work.
They'd still be able to do it, if my original idea - the 'two Links, one world' paradox - is the correct reading.
This theorising is all moot, though. There will likely be no intricate timeline shenanigans of this nature in the new game. We'll just have another reincarnation of the hero. They'll hopefully still knock something hugely entertaining out - I've not been let down by the feel of a Zelda game yet - just not this one.
[edit] I've been reminded that MM ends with Link riding Epona through some woods, with a musical theme from OoT playing in the background, so it seems the diagram *is* correct - he *does* return from MM's world and so both teenage versions are present in the same dimension at the same time. I look forwards to receiving further corrections ;)
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 12:16
There's a glaring problem with Nintendo's attempt to provide the Zelda series with a coherent timeline:
Explanation when I'm not so tired.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 01:57
Friday, May 21, 2004
Friday, May 21, 2004
Another scammer scammed: P-P-P-Powerbook.
UK import duties. Quite useful sometimes.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 16:21
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
And now that I got to the company's website to make sure I'm well up on what the job is, what the software is, etc., all I'm getting is a 404. Yay!
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 20:41
Blimey. Only got an interview. Finally. Next Tuesday, 2PM. To say I'm a bit nervous would be the understatement of the century.
Shit. Need new shoes.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 19:15
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Rizla's new blog. Go. Read. Be charmed by the fact that, after all this time, he still hasn't quite got the hang of creating links.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 23:39
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Everybody who hopes for continued evolution in video games gets excited at the news of a new piece of Nintendo hardware, so when they announced the DS they put a huge amount of pressure on themselves to come up with the goods.
Made worse, of course, by what they seemed to be pushing as the machine's unique selling point. Two screens. Specs leaked out and mentioned touch panel tech, motion sensors, 3D capabilities that supposedly put it in the same sort of league as their N64, but it was the fact that the handheld would have two screens that got the speculation going.
With good reason. When the design for the N64 controller was shown, their president announced that without it, the future of the medium may be in doubt. A bold claim, but one that was probably correct - the extra control the analogue stick presented to the player proved to be essential in forcing games to change and look forwards.
The secret is this: Nintendo design hardware to be capable of running the games they want to make. Third party software is a secondary concern to them; they design for themselves. That N64 controller was created entirely with Super Mario 64 in mind, no doubt about it. The GameCube wasn't meant to be able to compete with the Xbox in terms of sheer horsepower, because Nintendo themselves didn't have a use for that amount of power.
So everyone was waiting for this year's E3 show to see how the two screen DS was going to bring about the next revolution. If Nintendo have decided that the machine needs them, surely they've got another shockingly original game to go with them, a game that needs two screens to properly allow the user to interact with it?
The answer seems to be "no, they don't." When the games were shown, the second screen was used almost exclusively to display a map. Nobody knew what to expect, but nobody expected it to be that disappointing, not even those who were joking about it beforehand on the message boards. A fucking map screen. Suddenly, the Nintendo BS joke was frighteningly accurate. Two screens. A ridiculous gimmick created out of panic. Sony's PSP is coming, it's amazingly powerful and sexy. Nintendo freak out and give their new piece of kit a useless feature to try and draw attention away from their rivals.
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. But then I saw this - a video of a piece of DS demo software called PacPix. Suddenly, it's not about the two screens anymore. It's about the touch screen technology.
One thing that a lot of commentators have been saying recently is that video games need to offer even more simple forms of interaction than they currently do. Interaction in terms of how the player controls events, that is. Joypads are too complex for non-gamers to feel comfortable with. Not necessarily a point of view that I agree with, but there y' go. Sony's EyeToy is being held up as a prime example of forwards-movement in this area. Again, I tend to disagree. Sure, playing a game by waving your arms about is fun, but offers such a limited form of interaction that it's little more than a party trick.
DS would seem to cover this stuff pretty effectively. Using a stylus on the bottom screen, the player can control their avatar in the gameworld. Not a new idea, I know, but download or stream that video I linked to above to see why it promises so much. The player creates their own avatar by drawing it on the screen. The DS then animates it, and the player interacts with it. It's not all that much of a game in the video, but it should have developers sitting up and taking notice. I seriously hope they are, because if this idea can be expanded into a full game that offers variety alongside the fun that it obviously already does, we could be in for an astonishing couple of years. I'm excited by a new piece of technology for reasons based on something other than its power. This is innovation in gameplay, and I was beginning to think I wasn't going to see any this year.
More DS videos can be found in this Rllmuk thread (not a huge fan of that forum, but it has its uses).
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 20:27
Commin' atcha.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 13:50
Friday, May 14, 2004
Friday, May 14, 2004
Anyway, I've finally had a reply to an application that isn't "You got your degree at Wolverhampton? Fuck off and stop wasting our time." Not that I've even got to the interview stage yet - all that's happened is the CV's been sent from the agency to their client - but it's a step in the right direction.
'Cause if nothing happens soon, I'm going to have to settle for a shitty IT support position. Which I probably shouldn't complain about - it's work, and it's money - but it's a fucking dead end. IMO. I might as well get a job strawberry picking for all the good the experience'd do me in getting to do something I wanted in future.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 23:23
Wow. It's been a while since I've had such a strong 'fuck this' reaction to something as the one I'm having right now.
Not an interesting post, I know, but hey, fuck it.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 22:44
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
So there's a few hours left before this year's E3 kicks off, and already all the video gaming news sites have come grinding to a halt.
The Internet - a revolution in reporting.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 22:56
And that's really fucking clever, too. Don't redirect me my new post when it's submitted so that I can review it, but force me into going through a number of other pages in order to do so. You pricks - get rid of something that was useful and replace it with an utterly pointless page which doesn't do anything other than tell me that I've published a post. I know I've published a post. I pressed the 'Publish Post' button.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 14:29
Fuck me, but this must be one of the least useful design changes I've ever seen anywhere ever. Why am I now unable to view entire posts on the main blog screen? Why am I now prevented from viewing previous posts when composing new ones? Why am I now not allowed to see images that I've posted without going to my blogspot page?
Was any real thought given to the functional aspects of this redesign? I seriously doubt it.
Idiots.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 14:26
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Just been listening to a session by Tape on WFMU. Lovely stuff - imagine the melodic repetition of Fridge crossed with some of Gastr del Sol's most fragile moments. Some MP3 links on that page. Check them out.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 12:57
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Losing the fight against mediocrity for the last few years. Fire a volley |
