Half-Masked

Hey, Ken Sugimori, lead designer of the new Pokeymanz? Here’s something for you to consider:

It doesn’t matter how big or dark or spiky or bad-ass you try to make the new creatures look, I can still play Pretty Pink Princess Dress-Me-Up with them. It’s kind of hard for me to take Giratina seriously as some netherworld inhabiting monster-god when I can go to Hearthome citty, give him a bow and some sparkles, and make him enter a dance competition with someone elses Pikachu. Like he’s a freakin’ Barbie doll.

Appealing to a younger female audience is one thing, but I’m just sayin’ it has its consequences. Just thought you’d like to know, Ken.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

There’s one little optional side-quest in Final Fantasy XII where a woman has just moved to Rabanastre(the main “hub” city), and if you talk to her, she asks you for your opinion on her choices she’s made in her recent life. You can choose between encouraging her and telling her to keep her chin up, or to needlessly insult her.

What’s interesting is that not only does she respond in a much more appreciative tone if you choose the second, hurtful dialogue option, but repeatedly verbally abusing her is the only way you can “win” this sidequest.

There is no reason for Vaan or anyone else to respond this way to her genuine problems, and I don’t see why the player should be rewarded for treating someone like crap. Or more accurately, punished for treating someone in need with any compassion or dignity. I know, some people just need a kick in the bum to get things back in perspective, but the extent to which you are called upon to harass and ridicule this person, just to get a bow and arrow set, is disgusting. Criticism can be helpful even at its sharpest, but this is just too harsh. Does this woman have no spine whatsoever?

I think that was one of the dialogue options, actually…

Regardless, it just seemed unnecessary. And I hate to sound like one of those angry mothers scrutinizing every aspect of a video game to find some way to make it out as some child-brainwashing demonic murder-maker, but what kind of lesson does it teach to younger people who might play it? That the only way to help people who are feeling down is to be the world’s biggest dickhead?

END OF LINE

~A.H.

“Hey, guys! Instead of giving an award for Innovation in video games to Super Mario Galaxy, or Portal, or any game that’s even eligible for it, let’s give it to Halo 3…. AGAIN. Even though it shouldn’t even qualify, because it already won that same award from us LAST YEAR! Or it shouldn’t have been eligible last year, because it wasn’t out yet in regards to the deadline for this sort of thing! YOU DECIDE!”

This is why I hate awards for anything other than acts of awesome bravery, like killing a bear with a raised eyebrow. I vaguely remember one of the Penny Arcade guys saying that they thought Edge was the best voice for video game magazines out there. If that article is any indication, then I really have to wonder if Edge has been sharing what they’ve been smoking with Mike and Jerry.

Remember last year when The Departed won Best Picture? Now imagine if, instead of that, they gave the Oscar to Titanic. Again. You’d sexually violate your television. As much as I hate award shows, at least your Academy Awards and your Golden Globes pretend to follow their own guidelines. Genuinely calling Halo 3 more “innovative” than Portal is a brand of stupidity powerful enough that, if concentrated, could demolish continents.

This is the 2nd time this game has won this award, despite the first paragraph in that article clearly stating: “We hand out this accolade to the title released in the last 12 months that does most to further the creative culture of gaming

Bernie Mac died. Considering he was the only one of the “Kings of Comedy” who had any real comedic talent, I’d say this officially blows chunks. 50 years can translate to a long and established life, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough anymore.

I remember I had the misfortune of watching a horrible 3D Inspector Gadget movie where he did the voice of the wise-cracking car. I am not kidding. It is the best thing about the movie. His on-screen presence also helped make the Bay Transformers movie a little more tolerable and inviting. Seems he had a knack for making the best out of a bad situation.

His sitcom on Fox kicked all kinds of ass too, and lasted a commendable 5 seasons(which are two things you don’t normally hear in the same sentence as “Fox” and “sitcom”).

Looks like I’m gonna have to update the Digital Purgatory folder…

END OF LINE

~A.H.

I am very mad right now.

About a week ago, Tim Mclean fell asleep on a greyhound bus heading for Winnipeg. The man sitting next to him decided, for whatever reason, to decapitate his fellow passenger. Decapitation. In CANADA. What the FUCK.

There are more details to it, but the whole thing is so revolting that even I, a man who usually finds humour in the suffering of others, can’t quite stomach going into greater depth about the incident. What happened to him was barbaric and grossly unfair, and I’m not the only one I know who feels awful about it. Even though we hear about murders and accidents on the news all of the time, this one feels particularly horrible in comparison(though it’s no contest).

And to make matters worse, the grief was not allowed to end with his death. Nope. Apparently, PETA(known for such brilliant and sensitive awareness campaigns such as degrading women to hawk their twisted and two-faced ideals, handing out pamphlets called “Your Daddy Kills Animals”, comparing slaughterhouses to the Holocaust instead of the other way around, and euthanizing more animals than any other “animal friendly” corporation in America), decided now was the opportune time to compare the death of a human being to the plight of chickens, pigs and cows. Classy.

The crazy-train continues: The Westboro Baptist Church is sticking their noses into something that couldn’t possibly concern them, and they’re attempting to justify it with lunacy and non-truths. The Phelps Family Cirus is rolling into town and are planning on protesting Mclean’s funeral services. Reason being: “to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God

I appear to have reached an uneasy truce with my new tablet. For the time being, it seems to allow itself to work properly if I re-install the driver anywhere between 2-3 times a day. As such, I have been able to make use of its functions enough to enjoy it, and it has been able to cause me enough grief per day to fulfill whatever prickish desire it has to make life more of a burden for me.

I have discovered that, in the times that it allows me to use it, I fucking love having a tablet with pressure-sensitivity.

As you can see, I’m still in a Batman mood after seeing The Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago. Also, it never occurred to me before now that The Riddler is just Charlie Chaplin combined with the Jigsaw Killer.

(I also appear to have drawn his hands on backwards…) -.-;

Anywho, if this truce of sorts continues, you should expect Half-Masked to start up again soon. Already working on my second comic in 4 days. I don’t want to jinx anything(seeing as I have unusually bad luck with this sort of thing), but seeing as I’m actually HAVING FUN drawing for the first time in my life, it might not be too much to ask that the constant hiatuses will space out from now on.

That is, if my tablet will allow it. Pretty please?

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Returned the piece of shit tablet from earlier. It was nice of Future Shop to take it even though it was past the 14-day return limit. Although in my defense, that time was spent trying to make the product I payed for to perform it’s intended fucking function.

They gave us this sweet, and much bigger “Intuos” tablet instead. The options and such for changing the pressure sensitivity were a lot better than the other one. This one was a little more expensive, but the price is right.

Or it WAS, until I saw this familiar screen again:

I’m starting to think it could be a virus or something that’s keeping any tablet from working on my computer. I hope it is, because that would mean it’s not entirely the fault of Wacom. If it IS a matter of them making two shitty products that don’t work and cost as much as a Wii, then I’m going to have to burn down Wacom’s corporate headquarters.

Or, you know, complain about it on my blog… I haven’t decided yet.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Today I decided to catch “Azelf”, a Legendary Pokemon in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. The game denied me this more times than I bothered to remember. I won’t explain everything that happened, or even make a summarized bullet list of how it went down, because such an article would dwarf even my more long-winded contributions to this blog. My epic thesis on Why Halo 2 Is Dog Shit wouldn’t be this long. And it would be filled with twice the rage.

What I will say is this:

There needs to be a class of Pokeball between Ultra and Master. When the monsters get to Level 40, they become too much for Ultras to contain, but that’s where the “treadmill” ends, and they just keep coming in at higher and higher levels. Here’s a graph to explain(determining the point at which a specific class of Ball’s effectiveness at catching Pokemon ends, in relation to the average level of Pokemon per area):

The other thing I’d like to add is that, when I say I AM GOING TO FUCKING DESTROY JAPAN, it is merely a product of the frustrations born from the previous point. It’s nothing personal Japan, I love your culture and your people. But when you put something this frustrating in a game that’s designed for children, for the brief moments it occurs you make me less sympathetic for you guys circa 1945, if you get what I’m saying. I’ve sobered up since writing this article, but no moment in any game should make me yearn to see an entire civilization eradicated.

Either give us another, improved class of Ball above Ultra and below Master, or just give us more than ONE Master Ball for the TWENTY fucking Legendaries next time, Jesus.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

On a beach in the southern area of Sinnoh where Pokemon Diamond and Pearl takes place, there’s a little hut. Inside is a man who offers to analyze the footprints of your little elite squadron of critters. Sounds a bit suspicious to me, this guy definitely gives me a faint Miss Cleo kind of vibe. But I figure I’ll humour him. He probably doesn’t get many visitors.

One by one, the screen goes black and then fades back in again, I assume to save on the animation budget. Probably easier than having to sprite those little monsters walking around while some fat guy stares at them.

Anyway, then he describes how your little pocket monsters feel about you based on their footprints. On hardwood flooring, no doubt.

After enough training, all of the responses should sound the same; they’ll all be proud to have you as their trainer. But if you have a team of creatures of varying rarity, level, personality and so forth, the descriptions can be pretty varied too. I think this is important, because now each of them has a voice, an identity, and most importantly: a soul. And hearing what they thought of my time with them, according to some fat, friendless guy in a hut on a beach, that made me want to improve and be a better coach for this little team of multicoloured monsters. We still had a ways to go before the Pokemon League, I might as well get to know my allies on the way.

It got me to thinking of them as more than just a team in fact, or just a faceless cash-cow franchise for a giant Japanese corporation. Now they weren’t just dumb animals repeatedly shouting their own names. Now they’re my companions, with thoughts and feelings unique to them, and for the most part they were happy to be traveling with me.

After spending that much time with these weird little things, it was nice to hear this. It was pretty rewarding, made me feel like my time was well-spent instead of wasted on some children’s video game, and gave me an incentive to try and connect with the more “neutral” members of the team a bit better.

I gotta say, I appreciated that a lot more than the casino and dress-up minigames.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

“Violet Hill”

“I played SSBB with friends and found it to be a seizure-inducing clusterfarg of arbitrary mayhem and randomness.”

You say that like it’s a bad thing, Shamus. Or like that wasn’t the intended design choice of the developer, or precisely what makes it so unique and fun. What’s next, a complaint about Fallout being a stat/skill-raising game set in a nuclear wasteland? =P

Not that Brawl is flawless by any stretch…

END OF LINE

~A.H.