'Cause It's That Time Of Year

I hate the whole red and green season, the festive season which seems to have created its own genre of music (as bad as country/western) and I hate the Jolly Fat Man in the beard. The whole cultre of Christmas seems to hit a nerve with me. I mean, I am all for the birth of Christ, the symbolism in the time of year and the exchanging of gifts - I love the exchanging of gifts - it's just the whole 'Santa Claus Is Coming' red and green, jolly sort of culture that seems to have attached itself to the last month of the year (and very slowly showing up earlier and earlier in November) that I can't stand.

I also dislike the 'What would you like for christmad?' that comes out of everyone's mouth. I've never been one to ask for things, and the only things I can think of for people to get me I can never trust them to get the right one, or the right design. Plus, it's much better when people think up their own gifts, and is much more rewarding when they get something you like, and shows how much they listen and care. That's a good gift.

But nonetheless, I shall do what I have always done, and write my list to Santa.

Books
- Three Worlds Series, 'Destiny Of The Dead', 'The Tower On The Rift', 'Dark Is The Moon', 'The Way Between The Worlds'.
- Black Butler, Volume 3+
- FullMetal Alchemist, Volume 9+

CDs
- Devin Townsed - 'Addicted!', 'Ziltoid The Omniscient'
- In Flames - 'A Sense Of Purpose'
- Kamelot - 'Ghost Opera', 'Epica', 'The Black Halo'

Guitar shit
- A new guitar lead
- An acoustic guitar
- A metal effects pedal

DVDs
- Dexter season 5
- How I Met Your Mother season 4, 5, or 6

- Lots of Chocolate

- Enough money to make up what I spent on others.


I can be greedy every so often, can't I?

Signing out, with milk and cookies,

~Nattoons

________________
"Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero."
-Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

They Said

For a while now I have been writing a story, set a long while back when mental illness was not quite understood. It's about a schizophrenic who has found himself in a mental hospital and his illness distorts the world he is in. Trapped and trying to find a way out, a visual manifestation of his inner thoughts and subconscious talks to him and helps him around the place, while making him more and more paranoid and scared.

I have included here a short exert from the story, and if you want to read all that ive done so far, just go here and start from there. Enjoy!

Oh, and beware. There is blood. *creepy smile*

________________

Day 9

God, they won't stop screaming! Some of the other prisoners here are rubber-necking around, looking in the room opposite mine. I don't like the crowd. The person inside is screaming because the men in white coats are in there too. They're handling and beating the prisoner, just like they do to me. They still come in often, to poke me and prod me like I'm some sort of a dead beast. Except I don't make a scene. This prisoner is. I guess that's why there's so many others standing and watching, wanting to get a good look at the blood splatter, maybe be sprayed with some of the warm liquid.

I would like to see what's going on, but the glass window on my door is all blurry, they don't want me to see what's happening out there. I can't get distracted anyway, even if I could see. I need to stay with Him; I need to make sure I'm here when He awakes.

Oh, He is so close. I tried to match the screaming from the other room, but He didn't hear. He didn't even stir. I've stopped eating, too, completely stopped eating my food and drinking my drink. They couldn't have drugged me now, and they haven't been in to stab me in a long time. I also haven't slept. They can't do anything to me in my sleep if I don't sleep.

It's been a long day.

- - -

Hmm, so this screaming person proved to be very useful, eventually making enough of a scene to lure the white coats out of my room. And they left the door open. I think the screamer's dead now, since I can hear the silence again. As I walked out of my room I saw them, the white men all huddled around the screamer. It was scary – the freakiest thing I've ever seen them do to anyone else. They were crowded around, on all fours, their legs bent in unnatural directions and they were feeding, their heads buried in the screamer, poking up every so often to slurp down a part of intestines or something. I had to go back to my room; I vomited. I panicked and tried to wake Him up, but He's still out, so I grabbed His arms and dragged Him.

I managed to come across some sort of common room. It had chairs and those drips everywhere, attached to some people sitting in the chairs. Some of them have started to decompose – I think this is where they come to die. Their faces were drooping and I could hear the groans and spitting and those sorts of screams where no voice comes out – just desperate air pleading to be killed. There were some of the men in white coats behind counters in other rooms, standing behind a thick pane of glass. They just stood, staring blankly at each other, probably thinking the same dreadful thoughts.

He started thrashing and biting, so I dragged Him under some table near the wall where the cloth that laid over it drooped down to the cold floor. Hopefully no one saw the racket or heard all the noise.

I'm just waiting under here until everyone leaves. Maybe I can find some way to escape this hell hole. Or explore it.

There's some pattern on the table cloth, just hanging over the edge at the corner that I can see through. It's just enough for me to see most of the room without being seen. I watched the white coated creatures dragging out a body into the common room, pulling it by their teeth. They clawed at it and ripped off its limbs – whatever was left of them anyway. I can still see the pool of blood, all clotted and splashed in all directions. And there's the trail where they dragged the screamer to the counter - where the white man behind the glass stands - and shoved the mangled body through the window slot. I could hear it snap and crunch as the full sized body was crammed into a hole that could only just fit a hand. It was strangely soothing.

________________

I've done more if anyone's interested, and they're all on my website at my DeviantArt gallery.

Signing out,

~Nattoons

________________

"Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, 

lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors 

decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, 

Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors."

-Sheldon Cooper, Big Bang Theory

SuperNintendo Chalmers

Emulators are a wonderful thing. Our Nintendo 64 has been lost in history for a long time, I'm not even too sure what happened to it, but it's gone. However, I have still managed to play some of my all-time favourite games on Project 64, or PJ64 - one of the best Nintendo 64 emulators. I have recently picked up and completed one of the most brilliant games in history - BanjoKazooie. Let me tell you a little bit about it.

It has a simple story: You are a bear named Banjo with a bird named Kazooie in your backpack, and Banjo's sister has been kidnapped by Grunty, the evil ugly witch, so she can steal your sister's beauty. Banjo needs to enter Grunty's lair and enter various unique worlds to collect honeycomb pieces to gain more max health, gather musical notes to open doorways to further your exploration into the lair, and jigsaw pieces that help you unlock new levels.

The idea of the game is so very unique and addictive. It is a classic Adventure game, similar in style to Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64, where you traverse some sort of area, known as the Hub, which houses portals or doorways to small worlds in which there are various moves and items to collect. In each level there are a total of 100 notes, small yellow, well, musical notes. Once you exit a level, the record total of notes collected is added to your... inventory shall we say, and the notes in the level are reset. You have to get all 100 in the one go to leave with 100 more notes in your inventory, though they cannot be added again. Interesting concept. These notes help you open doors that have 'musical locks'. Different doors to harder parts of the lair require more notes. As well as that, there are 10 golden Jigsaw pieces in each world, as well as the lair. Completing various tasks, puzzles, or battles reward you with a Jigsaw piece, and they are used in the hub to open new worlds, by completing a giant puzzle that is a picture of that world.

Along the way you meet various fuzzy critters and friendly friends who either need help or want to help you on your quest. Some of the recurring characters are a mole (I forget his name) who, if you find his burrow mound, will teach you a move. You know, things like ground pound where Banjo jumps, flips over and Kazooie puts her head out and her beak slams into the ground under Banjo's weight. You can also do other things, like shoot eggs from Kazooie's mouth and ass, fly, high jump, and invulnerability (for a short while). These moves will all help you at one time or another to pass obstacles or complete puzzles.

Well, that's the basic premise of the game. It may sound a little childish, but trust me, I'm 18 and still love it to bits, and there's enough older humour in there for the older kids. What has really been done well is the execution of these ideas. Let's start with the music. I have yet to find another game with as good soundtrack as this game - the main tune of Grunty's Lair seems to be a spin on 'The Teddy Bear Picnic', that changes mood depending on the environment you are in. The song never stops playing, it continues in loops, but as you move from one area to the next, the instruments change to reflect the environment. Bells and chimes and strings take over when you near the snowy area, horns and trumpets near the swamp, and when around the graveyard the music turns spooky, all the while playing the same tune without stopping, seamlessly transitioning to different instruments. Enter the worlds and the songs change, but the mood is kept in each area, using lots of different instruments and sound effects that makes the soundtrack just fit in perfectly with everything else.

In some levels there is a skull house, and inside is this odd looking person called Mumbo Jumbo, who uses his power to transform you into any number of different little critters based on what world you are in (if you have enough Mumbo tokens, found in tough places throughout the game), each having their own little abilities, while all being able to fit into smaller holes and not get hurt from falling. Let's see, there's the termite, crocodile, Halloween pumpkin, walrus, and a bee. It's quite fun playing as these little guys and interacting with the NPCs in a whole different way.

In-game banter also provides a source of plenty of laughs, with Grunty speaking constantly in rhymes, Kazooie's snide comments about everything, and even the hints Brentilda gives you about Grunty - little facts that help you towards the end of the game - each disgusting and hilarious in its own way.

One challenge I have tried to do in this game is, of course, complete it 100%. That means collect all Jigsaws (got 'em all), all the notes (total of 900, done that!) every honey comb piece to max out health (2 to go) and all Mumbo's tokens (Don't know how many, but I've got TONS). It has indeed been a grand adventure in each of the nine worlds, and defeating Grunty was a marvellous conclusion to a wonderful game.

[SPOILER ALERT]
The end of the game was classic BanjoKazooie, with humour, puzzles and of course a battle. After you have enough Jigsaws and enough notes to approach Grunty herself, you must complete a board game, each space requiring you to answer a question about either the game, Grunty (the fact Brentilda told you throughout the game), tune or character voice recognition or visual recognition - depending on the space you are on. Once you get to the end, you are rewarded the prize - Banjo's sister, as well as a washing machine and a Grunty plushie. You watch the credits, then Banjo goes back to his home at Spiral Mountain (Banjo and Kazooie are conversing, which a virtual controller controls Banjo to his home, quite simply done and entertaining), then everyone is there relaxing, Banjo mentions he could go for a drink (lols) and then they suddenly realise Grunty got away. So of course you're then back in the Lair and have to go off and fight Grunty.

The game leaves off with a scene of you and some friends on a beahc having a great time, and Mumbo shows you some pictures of a few hidden items that were missed, that are used in the second game. Yes, they explicitly tell you there's another game, they even mention the title. Funny huh. I love their forwardness.

The only thing left now is for me to pick up BanjoTooie, a game roughly on par with its prequel, though much longer, and MANY more worlds to visit, items to collect and moves to master.

Go play it. Now.

Signing out,

~Nattoons

________________
"The advantage of having lived through this is that
I do know I'll come out the other side. The pain
lessons. You manage to distract yourself until the
distractions become more important than the thing
you're distracting yourself from."
-Ghastly Bespoke, Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer

Orglebernacious

Due to recent events I am now staying at my mothers place for the next few days. Don't worry, it's nothing too bad, just somthings have been at the forefront of my mind at the moment and thought it would be better for me to be somewhere where there's people until the weekend, since I have no school. On the plus side, I get to spend a bit more time with mum, and also have access to the internet which is a bonus.

On that note, I picked up Terraria recently, after my dear friend B bought it, and have been playing that as of late (offline though) and today I actually had quite a fun session playing online with B, showing him my expert world with awesomly huge house, bridges that span nearly the whole map between floating islands, and extensive collection of nearly every item in the game, then decided to start our own map together.

During said game of Terraria, the storm that has been expected all day finally hit. It. Was. Amazing. I have always been one to love storms (even when I was scared of them when I was younger) and todays was worth the wait. It went dark about one - one and half hours earlier than it usually does this time of year, and I noticed the sky was nearly black. Upon venturing outside I saw that, covering about 9/10ths of the sky was a massive wall of clouds flashing with lightning every couple of seconds, and within minutes it was pouring. And I mean pouring. It went from bone dry to flodded in less than a minute, then hail came down, then the thunder, and then it was over after about 10 minutes. Pity it didn't last longer. I've always found the noise of heavy rain on roofs and thunder coming from all 'round quite exhilirating. 

If only it lasted 'till bed time. I adore the cosy feeling of laying in bed, snug up into my doona listening to the patter of rain on the rooftops...

Rooftops... I like that song. I shall get it *just remembered the song now.* By Lost Prophets. Get it. It's good.

Well I'm losing any clear train of thought I may have had, so I guess I will head off.

Signing out,

~Nattoons

________________

"We watch it for the same reason anyone watches any reality 

TV shows - 'We are better than them.' "

-Jacob Isailofski

Son, I Am Disappoint

I am very disappointed with how the game industry has turned out. Don't get me wrong, I love video games; I plan to create them myself, even. But what I'm saying is that the gaming industry has taken so many turns that it's turned into a cacophony of improved graphics, realistic environments, mimicking driving or war or whathaveyou. I love good graphics, but it seems that these days that's all the game is about. Whatever happened to story lines, story progression, what happened to the adventure? It seems that graphics are getting higher and better at the cost of good gameplay.

Good gameplay is what makes a good game. It's in the fricken title. If you look at the old Super Mario games, the graphics aren't too good, but my god were those games addictive. I know people who still play Space Invaders and Tetris and lose hours of their day playing it. The graphics aren't realistic; its barely more than a couple of polygons, shapes and lines. So why do people keep playing them, and still love playing them? It's because of the gameplay. Sure, when you look at Doom I and compare it to Halo Reach, Reach wins hands down on everything. Doom has clumsy controls, jerky movements, and it's sometimes hard to distinguish between enemies, the wall and the bullets you're firing. Graphics are important. But when the game companies start focusing on graphics and trashing the gameplay, that's where things go wrong.

Growing up on the Nintendo (literally, I had one since like 7 and still play N64), I have had a good view on the progression of games. I still find that the 64 is the epitome of gaming, it has brilliant games that last long, hook you in, and provide scintillating stories to follow and get immersed in, and since then gaming has gone downhill. I don't mean that I don't like anything since then, god no, there are many games on the Game Cube, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC since then that I has seen me spending many a joyful hour hunched in front of a screen, but nothing quite compares to the originality of the 64. A perfect example in BanjoKazooie, a game I recently completed (which I will post a blog review about in the near future). It has a simple story, decent enough graphics, but the gameplay is so original, so fun, and I still struggle to find a game that matches the quality of BanjoKazooie.

Nowadays games seem to be taking a different path. We see more first-person-shooters than anything else, a ton of racing games, massive amounts of MMOs, RPGs about anything... whatever happened to good old adventure, or platform? Arcade is a bit outdone, but there are still ideas out there, it can't hurt to have a little variety. I don't mean they're all bad, Halo has a had a great run, and even though they slipped up with halo 2 and have been desperately trying to recover since, they've made their way back to the top. Valve continue to push out brilliant games (albeit very slowly) and every so often a magnificent game surfaces like Minecraft or Team Fortress 2.

The Wii was a failure, I'll admit that (still a Nintendo fanboy all the way), but only because game companies are so stuck in their ways that they don't venture from their repetitive game ideas at Microsoft or Sony and use the Wii to its full potential. Occasionally there is a great game put forward, Super Smash Bros Brawl (not as good as Melee but I'll take what I can get), Metroid Prime, and Skyward Sword. Brawl did not use the motion sensor very much, in fact, I'd recommend connecting a GameCube controller and playing with that, but it was still a brilliant game. Metroid was a whole new version of shooter, using the motion sensor to aim, and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, although not yet released, boasts the best use of the motion sensor so far, reading every presice movement of the Wii remote and translating that to the movement of Link's sword. But these are all classic Nintendo titles, made and produced by Nintendo, so people rarely notice it. If the mainstream names out there turned their attention to the Wii and really started thinking, I'm sure that will really revolutionise gaming.

What I'm complaining about is companies these days are sacrificing good gameplay and good story for higher graphics and closer-to-real-life gaming. Soon enough we'll be enjoying test flight simulators on our PlayStations, and we'll find those funny little driving simulations you do at your driving tests on your Xbox, and shitty war games (I'm looking at you Call Of Duty series) will get so realistic you'll be playing the general in his tent moving those figurines across a map of the world to organise troops. And because game companies are off aiming to make gaming more and more boring for the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo is getting left with those stupid little niche games like Wii Play and Beach Sports or some shit.

God, don't get me started on niche gaming.

PC is the only side of gaming I can, in good conscience, commemorate. With clients like Steam and companies like PopCap and Valve, gaming is kept at a wonderful and steady level.

Now excuse me while I build my world on Terraria and then abuse some monkeys on Donkey Kong 64.

Signing out,

~Nattoons

________________

"Fire, exclamation mark, fire, exclamation mark, help me, exclamation mark. 

123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. 

Yours truly, Maurice Moss."

-Moss, The IT Crowd

The Waiting Place

Things are kinda just idling along at the moment. not sure what to say, not sure what to do, just studying waiting for my exams to come and go, trying to get a job, trying to communicate with friends, and trying not to wallow in self pity of my problems which, when I hear about what my friends are dealing with makes me feel like I'm throwing a tantrum because i dropped my toy truck. Should I, shouldn't I, I really don't know and don't care right now. I'm just going to keep idling along until this incomplete heart of mine decides to actually want to do something rather than just half-hearting it all until I decide.

~Nattoons

________________
"The world is full of good people doing bad things."
-Poirot, The Clocks