check it out right here.

I’m just kind of playing around with these ants, it’s been a struggle, but I find programming really rewarding so far. Most of the time it’s 2 steps forward, one step back for me, but I think it’s worth it. The intention with this guy is to make it my new portfolio site, seeing as the current one is just an outdated, un-databased blog that I never update. Not that this would be any different, but keeping it simple [grey boxes] for projects, I could see myself just updating the images/links and being fine with it for some time.

I just finished Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up,” and am onto Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics.” It’s a piece of analytical genius, not just on comics themselves, but really all forms of art and design. I heavily recommend it and I’m only on the 3rd chapter. Anyway, in the 2nd chapter Scott mentions Kandinksy’s essay “On the problem of form” in the footnotes, so I hopped on the pipes and read it. Also, really awesome. And free. Here’s a snippet…

The joy of life is the irresistible, constant, victory of the new. The victory proceeds slowly. The new value conquers people quite gradually. And when it becomes undeniable in many eyes, this value which was absolutely necessary today, will be turned into a wall–a wall which is erected against tomorrow.

~ Kandinsky’s “On the problem of form.”

A bit ago I posted this: Excercise machines are selfish

And on digg yesterday I found this.

Over the years this has happened to me quite a bit, I’ll have an idea then shortly after realize someone else has gone ahead with it. Of course, for this to have happened already it means someone would have thought of it awhile ago in order to get the ball rolling. About 7 years ago I had an idea for a completely raw-foods restaurant after falling in love with sushi and the whole idea of just eating raw food. It made sense to me, and I thought it might make sense to others. Well a few weeks later some nut with crazy dreads and beads in his face opened up RAW in L.A. or something and there went that.

I always go back to the Waking Life segment with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy when they are talking about the connectivity of the world. How people seem to have ideas communally rather than individually. That’s pretty cool, if it’s the case.

First let’s get this out of the way, since it should be mentioned. But if you’re looking for an online co-op experience… it’s not on Castle Crashers yet. I actually got a hard crash after trying to simply enter the lobby, and inviting a friend to a custom match was simply out of the question. But, seriously I don’t really care. The game is awesome, and should be played with friends on nearby couches. Why? So you can make “suck-it” signs at them after you pwn them in The Arena!

Now onto the goodies…

Three of us got together in one living room [as it's intended] and crashed some castles like nobody’s business. And we didn’t just have fun, but it was a certain kind of fun that I think The Behemoth wanted us to have. A kind of irreverent giddy/badass retrospective on kicking ass old sKool®. Also, Castle Crashers is absolutely beautiful. Castle Crashers brings out all the joy I’ve ever wanted in a co-op shared-screen brawler. Double Dragon, Battletoads, TMNT arcade [not for NES, although that's not as bad as everyone thinks] all led up to this kick ass game. There are a few things that I’d pick a bone with, such as the lack of standard def support in regards to the icons and text in-game. Like when I try to buy a weapon or item at a store, we literally had to get on our hands and knees and squint to see what was going on. I’m not rich, but maybe the vast majority of XBLA players are and have fabulous HD televisions. Screw them, I want my standard def text in a legible format! I also have a bit of a problem with the way weapons are bought and equipped. Just give me a GUI menu overlay or something, but whatever.

While the gameplay is fantastic [could use a bit more forgiving 2.5D collision detection] that’s not really why I like the game so much, even though it has a lot to do with the experience. It’s the little touches that sent me over the edge. The shitting owl in the woods. The incredibly lively animations and effects. The numerous weapon upgrades, and the fact that you can even upgrade your weapons. It allows for a certain ownership of your own character while playing with your friends. The Cowboyana-esque arena fights in the middle of the co-op experience, which are always a great way to work off steam, not to mention the fight-over-the-wench-style arena fights which are a great touch. This actually came up as a suggestion, I said “Well who’s gonna take the girl here?” and to our delight this irreverent medieval attitude was supported by actual gameplay which was kind of like finding out your pre-arranged wife plays the same video games you do. We responded with a resounding, “Awesome!”

The individual character building of abilities also adds a serious, near-strategic, depth to the game. Although this game does not touch strategy there is a bit of it when playing with multiple people, trying to balance each other strengths and weaknesses with certain weapons, familiars, mounts and weapons. There’s a lot to this game and I’m not surprised this game took years to develop, both visually and design-wise, [can't we come up with a better adverb for design?] I only tend to review games on here that I’m absolutely loving, and maybe that’ll change. It’s been awhile since I’ve played a game I didn’t like since I don’t play many games unless I’ve done some deep research on them. Somewhere in my archives I’ve got a seething review of Tiger Woods Golf ‘08 for the Wii, maybe I’ll bust that out when I can’t think of anything better here. But, enough of that, just make sure and…

Go buy this game! Immediately. Seriously, go!

I knew someone was listening, and to my surprise, they are robotic! In fact it’s so consistent that after I make this post, within about 3 hours, I’ll have 2 comments from insurance spam, 2 from iowajailblogs.com or something like that saying…

Hey webmaster!
Cool blog!

…with some insidious link attached to the name in the url field. And while it would normally be annoying to have to moderate, Wordpress makes it really easy to manage this stuff, so in a way, the bots comfort me like a morning newspaper, or walking the dog. They give me that reason to get up in the morning, knowing they’re out there blindly clinging to my horribly insignificant blog-words.

Thanks bots!

but just in case your grew sentient, I’ll never post your comments if you keep this charade up! Next time, leave me a message of goodwill towards your unfamiliar man, stop acting all H.A.L. 9000 up in here. You’re a dead giveaway, that was soooooo 2001!