Stating the obvious.

Random obvious statement:

Russian Roulette is simply a series of critical dice rolls.
(Note: Bullets are harmful to one’s heath.  Playing Russian Roulette could result in death or a hole in your head… because of this I don’t recommend it.)

Sim City DS

I’ve been playing the hell out of Sim City DS lately. I love it but there are a few things that absolutely bug the shit out of me.

1. The mayor’s adviser. Why can’t I disable it? It honestly is annoying the shit out of me. I realize that it might make it easy for new players to catch onto the Sim City system but I’ve been playing Sim City games for over a decade… I get it. I just want to disable it so I don’t have to be annoyed by it. The reason it bothers me is because the narrative isn’t incredibly interesting. I just want to disable it and be done with it for good.
2. Characters that talk to much. I don’t have a problem with the residents of your cities telling you what you should do for them but cut down the text I have to read… damn. I find myself tapping the screen until I find the blue text then sign off an build it(or not). I just want to know what they want and be done with it. At first the narrative might be a little cute or whatever but it gets fucking annoying after a couple hours.
3. Terrain is completely flat…. No hills? WTF? Do I need to elaborate here? I realize that the DS might be limited in terms of what information it can process but why not have hills in the style of Sim City 2000? Maybe I’m totally off base and the DS is actually not capable of doing that but it seems like this shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Besides those three things I absolutely love the game. I think the action events are pretty cool and the fact you can turn them off when they start getting on your nerves and in your way is awesome. There are a few things I’d do differently.

1. Give the player an option if they want an adviser or not. I just want to turn him off and I can’t. Shouldn’t robots have off buttons anyway.
2. Cut down on how much the characters say. Even when I was interested in what they had to say I thought it was too much. After a couple weeks of playing it I didn’t really want to read anything and now that I’ve owned it for several months I rapidly tap the touch screen until it goes away. It is extremely frustrating when you’re really into building your city.
3. Add height/depth levels to terrain as it was present in Sim City 2000. It makes things more difficult and a lot more fun when you have you plan your city around hills and mountains.
4. Add more of a variety of buildings. I think this could make the city look more interesting because after a while you start wanting different buildings to pop up. I’m not talking about landmarks, I’m talking about standard residential, commercial and industrial buildings. I think it would be cool to earn new ones in some way. Like maybe you have to gain a population of 100,000 before the really cool ones begin to pop up. There are several ways you could probably make it seem as if they were rewards.
5. Allow for multiple saves. This might be another situation where the limitations of a hand held system comes into play.
6. Allow the player to select from various disasters to unleash upon their city. Sometimes it is fun to unleash a tornado, a fire and bowser(or bowser type creature) upon a city you’ve taken a lot of time to build. It is also a good way to see if you are prepared to deal with disasters.

I guess I am a huge Sim City fan and kind of a traditionalist as well. I believe that Sim City DS wasn’t really made for long-time Sim City fans but rather to introduce the franchise to a new and younger audience. That is all well and good but I picked up the original Sim City for SNES when I was very young and I saved up my money and purchased Sim City 2000 shortly after it’s release (1994 I think) . So by the time I was 11 I could build and destroy large cities with great haste. I don’t understand why you have to try so hard to appeal to younger gamers with annoying characters.

Update: I just looked at the screen shots for Sim City Creator and I have to say a few things about it. First thing is I think it is cool that it seems to have different time periods(SWEET). Secondly I have to say that I do not look forward to the characters. Hopefully they will be better than the ones on Sim City DS but that is something that I’ll have to find out. I was honestly hoping to see more Sim City 2000-like additions but I didn’t.

A legend is gone.

George Carlin has died. I’m a huge fan of his comedy specials, literature and the movies/shows he appeared in. I idolize his political/religious/social rants and still laugh at his jokes even though I’ve heard them hundreds of times.

“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” – George Carlin

“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” – George Carlin

“There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.” – George Carlin

“Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.” – George Carlin

If you haven’t read his books I’d strongly recommend buying them.  RIP George.

Take the power back.

So Ron Paul has dropped out of the race. I’m obviously a huge fan of his message but I’m not upset that he dropped out. He was going to lose anyway and he needs be sure he retains his seat in congress. Ron Paul has now launched a new effort. Campaign For Liberty seeks to sign up 100,000 members by September 2nd. It seems as if the website has only been up for a few days and already 30,500+ people have signed up. Theories that Ron Paul’s support has been dying off don’t seem to hold water. He and his message are going to be around for a long time so I’d recommend everyone just getting used to it.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

I like the plan they have. I’ll take a clip from the website.

1. Promoting candidates for public office who share our commitment to freedom.
2. Gaining a foothold in political life at every level of government by expanding our precinct leader program.
3. Educating the electorate and lobbying against harmful or unconstitutional legislation.
4. Encouraging the formation of discussion groups and book clubs at the local level to help people learn more about our ideas.
5. Establishing a speakers bureau to give presentations around the country about the great principles we champion.
6. Developing materials for homeschooling families, to help them educate their children in history, sound economics, and related fields.
7. Featuring written as well as video commentaries on the news and issues of the day.
8. Additional efforts as time and resources allow.

I hope to take some part in this effort in the near future. I’m not sure how I’ll contribute but it is definitely something I care about.

“There is something going on in this country and its big.” – Ron Paul

New layout for the blog.

Updated the look. I felt like the old layout was missing something important, so I added some blood. Enjoy.

Learning ActionScript3.0 and Unreal Tournament 3 Editor.

During the past 3 months I’ve been learning ActionScript 3.0. I’m actually having a lot of fun with it and at the same time it has the tendency to really piss me off. There seems to be a common problem with the corruption of files and that eliminated nearly a months worth of work. It almost made my mind explode in anger but then I realized that 3 weeks worth of work during the process in which you’re new to the program will commonly turn into a about 6 days worth of work after you’ve gotten a bit used to the program and the syntax. I’m not entirely used to it yet but I’m pretty sure I can now move forward and eventually regain what I’ve lost. I’ve been making a game called Spectrum and I’ve completed demo of a mini-game mode for the game which is essentially a re-make of Asteroids(Asteroid Fight Mode).

There is one book that I give most of the credit to. ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University written by: Gary Rosenzweig. It is an awesome book and I’d recommend it to anyone that wants to begin making games using Flash. I’ll eventually post a link to the game but it needs a lot more work and I have a lot more studying ahead of me.

A good friend of mine, Chris, will be helping me out and we’ll transform Spectrum into a more interesting and intense shooter.

I am also studying the Unreal Tournament 3 Editor. I am still going through the tutorials but I look forward to becoming more efficient with it. It is exciting to turn things I’ve created in Maya and Max into something useful. I can’t wait to begin learning to manipulate physics, weapons and particle effects but that seems to be on a level beyond where I am currently at. Give me a few weeks and maybe I can begin with the more advanced stuff. Give me 3 months and hopefully I and the DRD team will have some previews for the Haven’s Fall mod.

Election Year…

So later this year you’ll hopefully be voting. It generally isn’t incredibly important in terms of the presidential election for myself. (McCain or Obama will win, I’d never vote for either) It is very important to consider local and state level representatives. Instead of blinding voting for your favorite party take the time to research what they stand for. Even consider putting into office people that aren’t part of the two major parties. Independents are good but also take a closer look at the Libertarian, Constitution and Green parties. I don’t think voting for these parties would be a waste of a vote (I actually think it is more meaningful than voting for a Democrat or Republican). But of course the best thing to do is to just research the candidates. If you’re upset with the results government has produced understand that the two major parties don’t really plan to change anything. You’ll get the same terrible results if you keep putting these fools into office.

Start doing research now! Don’t wait for the candidates to come to you with their campaign, go to them and do your research. If they are an incumbent be sure to check out their voting record to see if they deserve to be in office.