Bonjour!

Finally did get Monaco at 80% off, which was nice. Played it for about 3 hours, and it's definitely one of the harder games I've played in a while. Or maybe I just suck at navigating the places. Just waiting until I'm finished with everything before getting into co-op sessions with a couple of friends. If I see it on sale again at a pretty low price, I'm supposed to email a friend about it. Looks like he's interested in playing after I got bored from fixing things and trying to finish assignments with everyone standing around.

Picked up the inFAMOUS Collection not too long ago. About 2 weeks ago, actually. Finally turned on my PS3 again. Good thing I still remember all my sign-ins, then decided to change them all to be more uniform. Almost forgot that I used a JP Yahoo account for my main. Really wish I could change the displayed ID to Zephyr135 to be more consistent with all my other stuff. Using an older alias, which was much easier to pin me as a female. Kinda fun, but kinda not at the same time. At least all those Demon's Souls players didn't send stupid messages at the time. I wonder if the servers are still up...?

Anyways, finished the game on Hard and with the Good ending. And I was only on Hard because the game thought I was doing too well in the initial missions. I don't know if I want to go through it again while going fully Evil since I'm currently trying to grind for EXP to do 1 more lousy upgrade to the simple lightning bolt. I still need 7000 EXP. Could do some amazingly annoying things like kick a innocent bystander, then run up to heal them for a quick 3EXP per go. But fighting is usually the way to go. Lots more EXP that way and I can cause some collateral damage along the way to get some healing in. Still need to clean up the rest of the areas as well.

I'm not really sure what to think of the game, really. Gameplay was OK. Nothing that spectacular, although the sneaking around is done better than in AC. Really, you can take cover. That's one of the main complaints I have about the AC stealth segments: you can't take cover behind random objects on the ground. Instead, you have to stay out of sight via corners or using vertical space. The Good-Evil choices were really black and white. Would've liked something with more of a grey area to it, but that might screw with the Karma system they have in place. Controls were decent. Might just be my controller, but sometimes my L1 doesn't register going into Aim Mode that quickly. Minor quibble, really. Aiming with the right analog could be a little more sensitive, and I've already cranked up the sensitivity to max. Including a slider would've been nice instead of 3 discrete settings.

If there's one thing I'm not particularly happy about, it's the sound. BGM is really sparse and takes a while to kick in whenever you're doing something.


And maybe 1 more really tiny thing: Cole doesn't seem to like running up stairs at times.

Watching stuff

So... Been watching livestreams of BL2. Turns out that you can kill certain enemies with the Lv.1 Repeater you get at the beginning of the game with Zer0 and B0re. Namely BNK3R and Hyperius. Also, that Wattle Gobbler DLC. That pretty much broke the ones playing it, and a few that were watching. All that delicious suffering~

And then watching the 24-hour livestream, which was pretty epic once it hit around the 5 hour mark. Nero - Doomsday, from one of the trailers that featured the 96.5% MORE WUB WUB, "Dubstep World" (lots of flashing lights, seizures!), and bullet time. It was leading up to the BNK3R fight, which experienced a few... technical difficulties. Yay. And then Mr. B0rgue just wants to kill the damn thing. "Why is he still living." And Bahroo accidentally "fixed" BNK3R fight by changing the turret hitboxes. No B0re to exploit!

In other news... Almost forgot about the Steam Autumn Sale. Still waiting on Monaco to drop a little further in price. Got Saints Row The Third and Surgeon Simulator 2013 from 2 friends. Amongst other things (2 Batman games, a few indies). Also finally managed to get 1 Prestige on Maya. Then again, I wasn't really aiming for it in the first place.



Still waiting.

Got Bored

So... yeah. As the blog title says, I was kinda bored. So I baked brownies. I said I would a few days ago in the event that there were no leftovers after the batch given to the archery club (and knowing the club, there would never be leftovers!). I happen to like the recipe that my sister found, which is over here. Except that for some reason, the brownies came out kinda wrong Wednesday night (it worked fine the first time I made them, but it was also during a warmer season). Not sure why since I followed the ingredient list and the instructions. Of course, there's also the issue of the house being perpetually cold, except for those stupidly hot summer days. Might have affected the batter negatively because of the melted chocolate mix cooling way too much.

So. Today. It was effectively a speed run brownie making session (I'm a gamer, speed-runs are probably inevitable to some at some point). Also changed a couple of things to reduce the chances of a dry brownie. So, below is what I did (and no, I'm not going to call them anything while wishing there was some wiki mark-up here):

Ingredients

* 5 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
* 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
* 8 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into quarters
* 3 Tbs cocoa powder
* 2 Tbs instant espresso powder or instant coffee powder
* 3 large eggs
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 2 tsp vanilla extract
* 2 Tbs Kahlua liqueur (optional)
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and adjust the rack to the lower-middle position. Line a 9-inch square baking dish with foil, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides. Use another sheet of foil to line the dish perpendicular to the fist piece, leaving another overhang on two sides. Spritz with cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugars, vanilla, Kahlua, and salt until well-combined.

3. Add the chopped chocolates and the butter to a medium, microwave-safe bowl, and heat in 30-second intervals, until melted, stirring well after each time. Whisk in the cocoa and espresso powder until smooth. Let it cool slightly.

4. Whisk the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Add in chocolate chips if desired. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish, and spread into the corners with a spatula. Level the surface.

5. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Cool on a wire rack to room temperature, about 2 hours.



So yeah. All I really did was change some of the sugar used and the order I did things. Namely that I changed the 1 1/4 of sugar to 1/2 cup white sugar + 3/4 cup brown sugar (the molasses should add a little extra moisture), and that I did the egg mixture first then melted the chocolate because of the colder environment. This ensured that the chocolate mixture didn't cool so much that the batter was near impossible to fold in the flour and spread in the baking pan. The end result was a somewhat dense brownie and it wasn't as crumbly as Wednesday/Thursday's result. Plus, chocolate chips. Knowing the people that would be eating these, the added chocolate isn't that much of an issue.

The original blog post that I got the recipe from also had frosting. Because I don't have that much of a sweet tooth, no frosting for me. Plus, it was pretty annoying making the frosting in time when I was covering for a certain someone for her potluck.

Oji-san really needs to DIAF

Seriously. I think I've attempted the Fiore de Rosa battle at least 5 times within 10 hours while staying in the default classes (they're all around Lv.8~9 in it now). The only reason why the battle is even remotely annoying is because of the Red Mage's job ability: you have a chance of gaining BP whenever you take damage. Hurting him means you're giving him extra actions per turn, and the AI generally doesn't like putting in negative BP. Cura-Thundara(-Attack) is the BP usage. Healing 1500~2000HP per, ~320 damage from Thundara (could be more, but eh)... Unsurprising that it took as long as it did. Don't deal enough damage per hit, and you'll be running around in circles. Not even stealing all his MP helped (Ringabell had enough levels invested in Magic Swordsman to use Aspir Sword).


Oh yeah. It only took about 6 months to start the game! Go me.

...


... I'll go hide in my corner of woe now.

Friend Code for BDFF: 1076-9148-2658

Oh dear

Half-Life 3 trademarked in Europe.


That was resolved quickly~

I don't get it

Poking at some AC fan art... I don't get it. Why's Altair sometimes a bunny? It's still more common to see him as a cat due to his "inability" to swim, but a rabbit is still up there. I can understand wolf for Connor. Ezio is a little harder to pin, but most common seems to be cat. Seen cat!Edward, but I think that one with him as a shark is the best being a pirate and all. Still haven't touched III, so I don't know if I want to get anywhere near IV.


I do approve of bunny!Altair though. Cute~



Also, note to self: after reinstalling everything and putting back LasRem, uncheck the "Read Only" box for likely both RushEngine.ini and RushKeySetting.ini. It seems that having either or both of them set to "Read Only" crashes upon the initial startup until the files are initialized. No idea why it does that, but at least I don't have to change around my HDs in order to do testing now! Probably didn't catch it because those files were set to Read Only on the SSD and it hasn't crashed before.

Game On 2.0

So... went to the Ontario Science Centre to check out the "Game On 2.0" exhibit. It was... disappointing to say the least. Honestly, it was just a relatively small room filled with a bunch of games of many genres. It was really nice seeing some of the older machines still functional. We're in Gen 7~8 now, and Gen 1 stuff still looks pretty good, if simplistic. Maybe it's because of how late we went. According to the site, there were a fair number of features that I didn't see. Still, ended up playing Deathsmiles, so I might go ahead with picking that up at some point. Should really add a Cave shooter to my library that isn't something as insane as Mushihime-sama or DoDonPachi.

After wandering around that exhibit for a bit, we went ahead with visiting the other parts of the OSC. Not too much has changed, although a few exhibits were missing. Namely the physiology related exhibits. Kinda hoping that Body Worlds returns at some point since seeing humans stripped down to their muscle groups is always entertaining. Plus, a lot of their more amusing activities were there. Could have checked out some IMAX stuff; that would've costed extra and we didn't really make plans around it.

Yeah, really not much to say about it. Wished there were displays showing the insides and the development process for the systems and games. Maybe a diagram showing the evolution of graphics and whatnot (gameplay is definitely harder, and isn't something as easy to quantify).


Also meant to get this post out a lot earlier, but eh. Got busy with stuff, lazy with the actual typing, distracted by Ezio's/my horrible bomb throwing,etc.

Tiny thing

Just finished cleaning my keyboard. Feels almost new~ Don't seem to be sliding around as much anymore since I wiped down the keys with a weak alcohol, which is nice. Should probably do the same to the laptop keyboard at some point, mostly because I don't use the mech. while in class. Too loud, really. Unless I'm in a lab. Then it's mostly OK, if only because the teacher isn't always talking and that we're going to be working on our stuff.

By the way, I'm really not liking the small surge of activity on the Recipes Wikia. Mostly because I have to go in and fix the formatting, removing irrelevant links/photos/vids, etc. A few times, one of the users actually replaced already established pics, so they needed to be reverted then reuploaded with a different file name. Yeesh.


Oh yeah. Finished Assassin's Creed. Now working on Assassin's Creed 2 (restart for feathers). Slight spike in activity on the LasRem boards, which is usually nice. At least I'm not speedrunning a file anymore. Don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

2014 needs to get here already

戦国BASARA4 trailer just came out. There's a lot more spinning than I thought there would be. Liking the new music... Then the ending. My god, the ending.

梵天丸.

We may see how 小十郎 meets 政宗, since 小十郎 calls him 梵天丸. Should probably do a little research on the Muromachi period since the Sengoku era is only part of the larger period. I guess 足利義輝 is a mirror boss...? Looks like it from the trailer.

Honor for All

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep was probably the best and most satisfying DLC I've played from both Borderlands games. Just the main campaign was worth it. Still need to go through the rest of the side quests. Should be funny enough, though I'm kinda itching to throw IRL D20s. Story-wise, it was kinda weak at first, but the character interactions were great. I'm not sure how real those kinds of reactions are to someone's death, but it does get somewhat disturbing at points when it's clear that she's in complete denial despite what the other 3 Vault Hunters are telling her.

And started playing a little bit of Dishonored. First game over I get? It wasn't from combat. It was just me, jumping onto a table... then falling onto someone's head. Apparently that's assault (then again, who would want someone to land on their head?), and enough to get me arrested at the very beginning of the game. Whoops. So even the Lord Protector isn't immune to giving someone a slight bop on the head with a boot.


OK, that's a lie. I've finished the game within the week. Wanted to see if I could still play and finish a game in a week, and luckily for me, the game was on sale. Picked it up with Fallout 3 GOTY for $15. Didn't want to try it with an RPG because I knew that would probably take longer.

I really enjoyed playing it. Kinda wished that you could explore Dunwall and maybe the surrounding islands more, especially since there's so much reading you can do, but I guess that's what the DLC is for. Maybe. Went High Chaos for my first playthrough since I figured that would be the easiest route. It kinda was and wasn't at the same time. I didn't bother upgrading and purchasing any new powers and enhancements, but all the various upgrades to equipment was enough to get through the game quite comfortably on Normal.

Then went Low Chaos, with buying whatever powers I would probably need/want. Mana consumption went through the roof, and it's a good thing that Piero's Remedies are just as common as the Sokolov Elixirs. Unfortunately, even though I managed not to alert anyone, I still somehow managed to kill 2 people by accident. The first was a Weeper in the sewers. Didn't realize it until I read on the forums that it counted (whoops). Must have hit his head on the pipes after I hit him with a sleep dart. The other was in the Flooded District. And seriously? There's a ton of water in that level. Might have been when I accidentally dropped an assassin into a shallow pool. After I heard the splash, I immediately picked him up and dumped him somewhere else. He was still breathing, but I think it still counted against me. I check everything I shoot/hopefully render unconscious. There was really no other instance where I could've killed anyone because I choked out all the weepers (didn't have any sleep darts at the time). So now I'm going to have to go through it again for the no-kill achievement (not that I mind), because that was my Low Chaos run's intention in the first place. I just screwed up really early without knowing it, then just kinda got sloppy at the Flooded District (although it was kinda non-indicative...).

Oh yeah. In the credits? Noticed certain names. They're from Looking Glass Studios. No wonder. At least Corvo's controls didn't feel rubbery like Thief 3's Garrett. That was awkward.

At this rate... I might actually be worried about Thief... Although the idea of expanding on Dishonored's world might ease my worries a bit since I probably won't be thinking about it. Maybe... As long as it's Arkane doing all the work without Bethesda interfering! I still want an art book!

I'm not dead

Just been busy with various things. Mostly school and archery, because I'm now on the committee taking care of various pieces of equipment. But I think I have a little bit of time for some updates. So how about that vault hunting? Maybe not that vault. Or that one... Oh well. As long as it doesn't have tentacles and disappointment as the reward, I'll be fine with it.

So about that Borderlands post? Yeah. Finished Playthrough 1, 2, and 2.5 quite a while ago with Mordecai. With enough enemies around, he's a decent killing machine with Bloodwing and some sniper regen. I can still run out of ammo easily if I'm using the Penetrator to spray the field. Still need to beat Craw, but I don't think I can do it solo. Skill level isn't high level, although I think the equipment I have should be sufficient. Been farming on 2.5, so... Waiting on a friend so we can take it down together. Meanwhile, I've started playing with another set of friends as Brick (campus friends), and probably with Lilith with another friend. I guess I'll go solo with Roland, not that I mind. Free ammo regen with the turret!

The campus group is interesting. They're Roland and Lilith. So... you would think that this would be a decent team. Kinda, not really. The Roland really likes to run up and empty his clip at close range (maybe I should try getting him a Chopper since I can take on Knoxx's DLC now). The Lilith likes using elemental launchers and non-elemental shotties. I'm using almost exclusively explosive weaponry, which is fine because I'm boosting explosive damage via skills, and have rocket regen. I think I've taken down most of the story bosses for them (including cheesing Krom because I thought it was funny). In Moxxi's, I'm mostly running around making sure that they don't die. Real reassuring when the Roland goes "it's alright!" then goes down within 5 seconds of saying it.

We haven't been playing together lately so I've gone ahead with finishing PT1 with Brick. He has a pretty crap endgame, and I can definitely see it getting worse in PT2/2.5. Berserk has practically 0 range as it's not projectile based or a game changer. Does give a decent boost to damage resistance and some health regen, but usually not enough while under heavy fire. Doesn't help knowing that I also activate it when I'm critical. At least it was improved upon for Salvador and Krieg (not that I've played Krieg, but the concept is much the same) by giving them some sort of ranged option. Or in Salvador's case, it's Berserk with guns!

I seriously need to get Brick better gear if he's going to survive PT2~2.5. Not sure what kind of shield because Tediore's HP regen is quite nice to have around. It's not like the Moxxi guns are going to save me because they don't exist here! I haven't found any info about how Berserk's HP regen works. If it's based on max HP, then it might be better to go with Torgue's shields to boost that effect. I know that it's generally better for Mordy to go that route because of the percentage heal when Bloodwing attacks. Explosive damage is still decent, but I may need to switch over to using other elements until I can farm for much stronger explosive gear. Too bad grenade mods are so plain here. Transfusion is still one of the more useful ones. Never did figure out how to use Atlas's Rain mods, and I tend to be pretty bad at lobbing grenades in the right direction.

Eh, that's really about it for BL1. Maybe I'll type up something for BL2 soon. Still need to beat Crawmerax.