Faster Than Light is a wonderful indie game where you command a ship, with your own crew members, and take it through the galaxy on a mission. You’ll encounter other ships, do battle or bargain with them, and upgrade your ship+crew along the way.

After 45 hours played, I beat this game for the first time today. It’s not a long game, rather, it’s arcade-style, so when you die, you lose, and then you restart. Each “round” takes at most an hour, less if you die, obviously.

I bought it about a month ago when it was on sale for $5, and it’s on sale for $5 again, for this weekend!

I highly recommend it. It has a wonderful space theme, leaves a lot of room for planning, analyzing, optimizing, and micromanaging. It has lots of fun choices to make, different strategies to use to venture through the galaxy, and strikes that wonderful balance of luck and strategy. This game is different every single time you play it.

Also, I like that the game is challenging. Now, I would certainly call myself a gamer, and I know my way around game mechanics and strategies, so believe me when I say this isn’t a walk in the park. This isn’t even like a mile run. This game is tough! When I say I beat the game, I mean on Easy mode. I played Normal mode a few times when I first got it, switched to Easy mode shortly after, and haven’t gone back yet. The difficulty of the game is a welcome breath of fresh air, considering how many other games these days baby you or walk you through them. This game gives you a very intuitive and in-depth tutorial, making you think you’ve gone it, and then you venture off into space and your ship gets boarded by Mantises that slaughter your crew. Space is so unforgiving. (Restart!)

I am most impressed by the polish of the game, as well as all the little details that have gone into making the experience immersive and enjoyable. There are nine different ships, each with its own room layout and secondary layout, six+ species of crew members, tons of different weapons and ship augmentations to pick from. There are bunches of things to unlock, achievements to do to unlock them, and the sense of progression is fantastic. You can even name your ship and starting crew members! (Top choices for my space crew are Maverick, Goose, and Iceman.)

This game is on sale this weekend for $5 (off the regular price of $10), and I highly recommend that you pick it up if you want to experience a fun, creative, polished, replayable, and challenging game.

games :]

David Sirlin has helped me to better understand a little more about what it is that I enjoy so much about playing games with other people.

Competitive games are a means of expression as well. Players seem to have trouble approaching a game differently than they approach life in general. The way they take in information, the way they make decisions, the aspects they value, and the skills they excel at are usually similar inside and outside of the game. In fact, many people, myself included, have come to understand a lot more about who they really are through the way they end up expressing themselves in games. There are many forms of expression in the world, but one of the advantages of competitive games is that they force you to test your worldview against the worldviews of others. It’s easy to develop highly unpopular theories about life in general that you have no real way of testing, but competitive games force you to jump in, get dirty, and see how those ideas really stack up. If you are an unconventional genius, you will prove so beyond all doubt. If you are a confused quack, that too will be borne out, and you will have the opportunity to learn from others and change your ways.

"Final Thoughts" from http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

His Playing To Win book (free on his site!) is highly recommended reading if you play any kind of games at all.

stuff i like, part 1

let's start with the basics.

i like pineapples.

come on now, who actually didn't know this?


i'm not sure how i came to like them, but.. i did!

what do i like about them? EVERYTHING.

first of all, it LOOKS cool. what other fruit looks as aggressive and spiky and awesome? it has a very distinct shape/design that is easily drawn and even more easily distinguished apart from other fruits. there's no getting a pineapple mixed up with an apple/peach/plum/blueberry/tomato, that's for sure.

it smells nice. i have a pineapple cologne from bath & body works. and various other good-smelling pineapple products.

it's nice to hold. it has a nice hefty weight, good for when you just wanna .. lug something around .. that LOOKS COOL.

the only thing that is amiss in my pineapple obsession is that i don't like to eat pineapples. if you eat too much pineapple, it messes with your tongue and you get that annoying irritated feeling on your tongue and i HATE THAT! maybe i just shouldn't eat pineapple in droves, but hey, that's what i do when i like to eat something!

all in all, pineapples are awesome. you can never go wrong with a pineapple-related item as a solid choice for a gift.

now, if only i had a baller friend who would get me the pineapple from swarovski...

next..

i like god of war.


so the story goes, one day in my senior year of high school, i was chillin' on the couch, watching gameplay hd, a gaming channel that, well, talks about games. they have this one feature where they show footage of a particular game being played, and as i watching one day, i witnessed the most awesome action game i had ever seen. it gripped me the instant i watched it, and i knew i had to play it. what about it? the violence is so awesomely over-the-top, the greek mythology is very interesting and well-integrated. the graphics are nice. and man, the game is just straight-up ba.

unfortunately, i felt sad because a game with such good graphics had to be on the 360, so i had little chance of playing it. BUT LO AND BEHOLD, it was actually FOR PS2. AND it was like 3 years old already! i jumped on ebay and snatched up a copy for <$20 .. and so it began. story: kratos is a spartan warrior who fights for ares, the god of war, because ares saved kratos' life in exchange for kratos' service. ares cursed (blessed?) kratos with the blades of chaos, a blade at the end of a chain, with one on each arm. however, kratos eventually vows to seek revenge on ares when ares tricks kratos into killing his own family. the goddess athena aids kratos in his journey to kill ares. that's god of war 1. and there's god of war 2. a whole second game. bigger and better in every way. thank you kevin for buying it for me. :] action. violence. challenge. puzzles. pure fun. god of war defines epic. the action, the battles, the story, kratos, the music, the sense of scale. mind-blowing.

although i must admit, i'm scared to play the game by myself. heehee.

i think it resonates so well with me because it satisfies this internal desire that i never even knew i had until i first experienced this game. or maybe seeing the game and playing it created this desire in me. who knows. AND WHO CARES. KRATOS IS THE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

here, look. [WARNING: this video is kind of gory. and by kind of, i mean, immensely.]

More God of War III Info

kratos picks up a man and rips him in half with his bare hands. HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

god of war 3 is coming out march 2010. i am psyched beyond belief. and i am definitely getting the ultimate [collector's] edition, one way or another. mark my words, god of war 3 is going to be beautiful. in every sense of the word.

[wachu know bout me]
-the longest my hair has been is a little more than 5 inches. i plucked this one strand of hair out a few years ago and taped it onto a ruler. it's in my house, you can see it if you want! yay!
-i drape the toilet paper off the top of the roll. the one and only way to do it. unh.
-i only work with college ruled notebook paper. and it has to be 8.5" x 11".

beautiful is my picture

i got infamous. it is AWESOME.

it's funny, cause the game is based around a karma system, where you can either be good or evil (derr), with three ranks for each side. i had already decided before playing the game that i would be good for the first playthrough, and evil for the second playthrough, since each one has different side missions, different powers, as well as a different storyline. in the first mission, a "karma moment" came up: food crates were dropped in the park. i had the choice either to let the starving civilians eat, or to fry them and take the food for my friend and myself. i, being the goody good person that i am, let them have at it, and i felt good about myself. but then, some dood on tv was badmouthing me and saying i was trying to steal their food, so all the twenty or so civilians start STONING me. i'm like, what the heck!

so i killed them. eheheh. [it didn't have major negative karma in relation to the mission-based "karma moment"]

but yo, i'm really looking forward to the evil playthrough, cause if you know me, i just like to kill and destroy and blow up stuff, like my allies and innocent civilians. ahh, so good. it's hard to resist the urge while i'm on my nice-guy playthrough.

johnny also loves the game and has his own save file. i think he's going to play through it all.. which.. i guess isn't a big shock since it's summer anyway.

now, for my other hobby, i'm looking to head down to rutgers pretty often this summer to play BADMINTON, so if anyone would like to come along and play, just lemme know. LIKE WITH WORDS.

[randumzz]

-i don't wear jeans. the last time i recall wearing a pair of jeans was back in middle school, 6th grade or something. but after that, not at all. i'm considering getting a pair because my favorite pair of khakis got inked in the wash, and i had to go to RCCC with sweatpants, which looked super bum. and i'm not doing that again. plus, sometimes you need jeans for stuff, and i'm like .. i don't have jeans.

-i think for all of high school, i only wore shorts, even through the winter. (well, minus snowboarding.) i love my khakis! then i wisened up. but that was after my legs grew like mad cold resistance. eheh.

-after my first year at college, i've become more of a finger food eater. i try to eat everything i can with my hands, and when i can, also pick food that i can eat with my hands (but not at the expense of yummies, of course). i dunno, utensils are just hasslesome. and i really dislike that feeling/sound when metal slides against my teeth.

ps. also, for those of you not in the know: whether you have a blog or not, you CAN add comments.

a machine where your heart once was

kfc broke my heart. i remember when i was younger, eating at fast food places was always a treat for me because my parents didn't spoil me with that, and we ate at such places very sparingly, especially kfc. and so whenever the fried chicken-y goodness was brought home, i ate up that stuff like crazy!

skip ahead a buncha years. the next time i ate at kfc was sometime in early high school. first impressions: wait.. something's off.. this doesn't taste like the chicken i remember.. -looks at box- "Now with NO TRANS FAT!" (or something like that.)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. -heart breaks-

it's still yummy, the only thing that was affected were the wings/drumsticks/breasts (the things on bones), the crispy skin just doesn't taste quite the same. the colonel's strips and popcorn chicken and all that boneless stuff still tastes the same. and the kfc bowls are still mad yummy (though they didn't have them way back when).

what if i WANT the trans fat? it's not like i'm gonna binge on kfc, i'm still going to enjoy it in moderation, but the trans fat made a HUGE taste difference. they should have an option where i can request it on my chicken.

oh, and the same thing happened with cup noodles (with MSG i think).

[3r]

-my favorite color is blue. next, orange.

-i love physics. the concept of it. doing physics problems (at least so far). reading about it. buying geeky books about it. in the same vein, i'm a sucker for physics games. like, simple games based around a nifty physics engine, requiring out-of-the-box physics-related thinking to achieve goals, like WORLD OF GOO. PLAY IT NOW.

(wow i started writing this post about 4 hours ago, couldn't think of one more random thing, and then played killzone for a while and just now realized i have to finish this post. dang.)

-i have a $150 men's ring from tiffany's. i got it for my 18th birthday from a bunch of people at church. i don't really know why i wanted it. now it just sits at home, since i'm afraid i might ding it up or lose it if i wear it, plus it's a little out of place if i just wear it normally. and i lost my silver polish cloth. dang it! but it does have its sentimental value to it, regardless. :]

still alive

hi. i'm still alive. i don't know why i don't feel inclined to blog. i forget about it. i feel like no one reads it. no one comments. i'm too lazy. i need consistency. i'm not interesting enough. or clever enough. or witty enough. i feel like i need to type all grammatically punctuationally and capitalizationally correct. i keep forgetting to type in the present tense.

so, what's been up lately?

• my bike pedal breaks!

one sunny day, i am biking on my way to calc2 at hill center, and i decide to try to take a shortcut through the faculty parking lot in front of the dinner takeout area, and i have to go over some really tall curbs. on my way down from one of these tall curbs, i land with all my weight on my left foot, and the bike pedal snaps off. dangit. i put it in my pocket. and then i end up awkwardly biking the rest of the way to calc2, and then coasting on the largely downhill ride home.

the days that proceed are interesting. i walk to class. i walk back from class. i walk to the dining hall. i walk back from the dining hall. and most of all, i feel SO SLOW. i feel like i'm handicapped, and that with every step i'm losing precious time that could be conserved with a faster method of travel. it honestly feels weird. i do, however, get to listen to more music. :]

funny thing is, not even two days later, hilary asks if i want to have "her" bike for me to use. i say "her" bike because it's actually "my" bike. and by "my" bike i mean jordan's bike which i borrowed sometime back in early high school and never returned. just like his scooter. and his ps2.

of course, i immediately agree and once again return to my comfortable throne above a lovely set of wheels.

• i'm living in crosby 205 next year!
  

yes, the supercool preceptor suite that we were all able to attain with my supercool housing lottery number of 255. woop-de-doo. me + mike wang (cap), pat lau + his cousin stephen, and jason lee + henry yang. it's funny, cause i hardly know stephen, jason, and henry, and i only know pat moderately better than those three. well, i guess that happens when i only picked mike to be my roommate, and i let him pick the other four people for our suite.

i wonder what it'll be like. i think of different suites that i often visit, and i can feel that the atmosphere is different in each one, depending on how close and trusting and open the suitemates are with each other.

• i buy killzone 2!

yes, i finally got around to purchasing this awesomely delicious game, for the dandy price of $45 from ebay. i jumped straight into the multiplayer, which i've logged a glorious 35 hours into over the last three weeks, and it is incredible. the graphics, the sounds, the gameplay, the atmosphere. it is phenomenal. the hours fly by uncannily fast, and too many a time have i play into the early morning hours and then conveniently remember i have discipleship the next day. :P

• i declare my major as mechanical engineering!

okay, i must say, i am definitely more than a little hesitant in putting an exclamation point after this bullet point. i had to declare my engineering major this past monday, and man, it was difficult. how do i know what i even want to do in the future? how do i know what i'm naturally good at? how important is my future career? how do know right now if i can handle the work? just so many questions, and so few adequate answers from the many people i've asked. it's not their fault, though, i think the questions -- okay actually, upon reading the last few sentences and realizing how very uninteresting this is, i'll spare you guys. mech e yay!

• devils are in the playoffs!

okay, the main thing is that i'm really hyped about watching the devils. especially after their bad bad show in the post-season against the rangers, losing first round in five games against those red white and blue guys in funny-looking shorts. grr.

• i can take linear algebra as a substitute for chem 2!

YEAH DAWG. I DESPISE CHEMISTRIEZZZZZZZZ.

why is there no way to indent?!