I do not believe in good and evil as absolute moral concepts. In truth, I believe in very few absolutes at all instead tending toward shades of grey and fuzzy edges. If I did believe in such things, however, I find that this might be the closest thing to absolute evil that I've ever read.

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So, Steam has a pre-order deal for Bioshock 2 (PC). If you pre-order from them, you can get a four-pack for $135 which is like $33.75 per copy. That price is honestly pretty close to what my price point for first-person shooters tends to be. As such, I'm looking for three other people who'd want to go in to buy with me.

Any takers?

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So, I was watching television, as I often do, when a comercial for Kidz Bop. I was mostly not paying attention do to the fact that I was playing Dragon Age, until they mentioned that If you bought Kidz Bop [number] then you'd get Kidz Bop Sings the Beatles for free. At that point I was like, wait, the Beatles? Really? I so hope that they have "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "Revolution 9", and "Rocky Racoon".

Somehow, I doubt it.

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In addition to defeating Assassin's Creed II over break, I also beat one other game. I had previously purchased Shadow Complex when it was on sale, but didn't have a chance to play it before I went back to Indiana for my break. My brother, however, had also purchased it and so I made use of his copy to play it.

For those who are unaware, Shadow Complex is generally described as a metroidvania game. In gameplay terms, this ends up meaning that the player character interacts with the world through a two dimensional interface and explores a world which is mainly revealed through the acquisition of new equipment. The game also includes a "leveling" system which gives periodic meaningful powers every 10 levels and minor (as far as I can tell, useless) powers at every level. The character's level is carried over from subsequent playthroughs which gives an incentive to play through it repeatedly. The game also has a somewhat unique addition to the nominal metroidvania framework. Since the game uses the Unreal 3 engine, the universe itself is rendered in rather high-quality 3D. The developers decided to make use of this by allowing the enemies the ability to move in that dimension that your character is unable to. To deal with this, the second analog stick is used to aim your weapon which allows you to point "in" or "out" of the screen to target enemies who inhabit those areas. Though it is sometimes a bit frustrating, it generally works very well.

I enjoyed Shadow Complex quite a bit and decided about half-way through the game that I was going to defeat it. On my first playthrough (on normal difficulty), I collected 100% of the items which has at least one major side benefit for subsequent playthroughs--it unlocks the ability to start the game with the most powerful primary weapon rather than going through the normal weapon upgrade progression. My second playthrough was done on "Insane" difficulty. My reason for choosing the highest difficulty was that it provides a major boost in experience gained and my goal was to reach maximum level as quickly as possible. There is very little lying when it comes to describing the difficulty as insane. Enemies do truly outrageous amounts of damage on that level and can, in a few seconds, turn a full health character into a dead one. This leads to a major shift in the way the game is played. Rather than rushing into a room and punching or shooting everything in sight while bounding around, you must make use of the cover provided in the levels, shoot enemies from adjacent rooms and make use of good bad bugs like the fact that your health persists across saves, but whether a health pack should still be in a save room do not.

The insane playthrough went faster than the first one, but wasn't a 100% run. The reason for this was due to the fact that, although the entire map becomes visible when you hit level 20, the item locations (and pickup status) which show up at lower difficulties is notably absent on insane. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to beat the game, and since I had gathered so many items (about 98%) and killed so many enemies (because I was leveling), I scored quite highly on the leaderboards. At the time, I ranked in at 1133 of all the players of the game in overall score for a playthrough.

My next run was to be the "minimalist" run. This run was done in order to get an achievement. In order to get it, you must beat the game with less than 13% of the items. There is a further "bonus" checkbox that can be ticked if you beat the game with under 4% of the items. I decided to get both of these in one fell swoop. Because of the large handicap, I decided to play it on the lowest difficulty--casual. After examining the relevant guides and a few false starts, I managed to clear the game with only 3% of the items. Managing this particular feat requires quite a bit of sequence breaking and actually cannot be done without making use of a secret area which is specifically for the purpose of making such a run possible. Since doing a "minimalist" run takes so little time, I actually managed to rank somewhat highly on the "Fastest Playthrough" leaderboard--somewhere around the upper 1500s if I recall correctly.

My final run was to get the last achievement: reach level 50. I was already past 40 by the time I cleared my minimalist run, so I simply started a new game on insane and ran around until I'd reached maximum level.

I should probably say a few things about the game that perhaps might be understood without me stating them explicitly. Firstly, the game is really quite solid. It is rare that I play through a game twice. It is rarer still that I play through a game 3 times. I can name very few games that I've played 4 times since I reached the point where I could get new games easily. As such, if you have an XBox 360, I recommend the game very highly. It is periodically cheap (I think I got it for 800 MS points, nominally $10), but is usually 1200 MS points which is still a fine deal for the price.

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So, I've been at my mother's home for a while with relatively little to do. Not long after I arrived, my mother mentioned that she wanted to make a table from a bunch of old books that she was otherwise going to discard from her library (for those unaware, my mother is a high school librarian). After a bit of consideration, I came up with a plan that led to the table you see above.

The legs of the table were made by drilling 7/16 inch holes through the center of each book. The books themselves were then stacked together on a 36 inch long, 3/8 inch diameter bolt The bottom book of each stack was then specifically choosen to be especially thick. This book was then screwed shut (possibly into another adjacent book), and the counter-sunk using a 1 and 1/4 inch panel bit. The counter sink easily covered up the nut and washer placed on each side. The screws helped these bottom books maintain uprightness when their integrity was otherwise compromised by the countersink.

Drilling the books was accomplished via clamping them to a piece of scrap MDF and then drilling through. The clamping was done soas to provide something to drill against and to create better exit holes on the books. My brother and I accomplished the drilling over the course of several sessions wherein he setup books to drill and I drilled them. Using multiple clamps and setups allowed us to drill several books per minute.

The top of the table consists of 28 books from a particular set of books (what set, I have no idea). All of the books were placed onto a piece of 49 inch by 39 inch piece of MDF (that luckily had already been cut to size and was a leftover of my rackmount case project from college. Each book is screwed in place with four 1" screws. The corner books are special due to the fact that they have to support the legs. These books, after been screwed down, had holes drilled at about center through the book and MDF. After the holes were drilled, I used the 1 and 1/4 inch panel bit to countersink through most of the book so that I would have a place to hide the other set of nuts and screws. All of the holes and drilled screws in the top of the table were made with the corresponding books open so as to leave the faces undisturbed.

Assembling the table was done after the legs and top were otherwise finished and was accomplished by only myself and my mother. It only took a few minutes, but we did have to remove and replace a few books due to slight misjudgements of the amount of space needed at the top. Now that it has been completed it will probably sit where it is until my mother changes schools (ACSC is undergoing some sort of reorganization).

Additional photos are on my flickr page and show the insides of a couple of the top books to show the construction as well as the table and legs from various angles.

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For Xmas, my brother gave me a copy of Assassin's Creed II for the XBox 360. I had originally been intending to pick it up for the PC, but the 360 is a fine place for a platformer. Luckily, my brother had brought his 360 home from college, so I began to monopolize it to play through the game. I ended up finishing it about 5 days later.

The game mostly plays quite similarly to the previous. Gameplay wise, there's been little done to alter the mechanics, though they do feel more polished and combat seems less like countering is the only option (though it mostly still is). They've also severely deemphasized the framing device story. Although you do begin the game in the "real world", unlike the former, you cannot exit to the "animus world" at will, nor are you kicked back into the "real world" whenever you complete a chapter. Overall, I think this makes the actual game flow better.

The game added a new "money" dynamic that had a relatively large impact on gameplay. In the early game, money is mostly obtained via pickpocketing, completing missions, or finding chests. About a third of the way through the game, however, you gain access to a "Stronghold". This should more accurately be called a city in your charge. You're given the ability to remodel various buildings in the city, open new establishments and otherwise make the place better. Doing so will cause the city to periodically produce money. Unfortunately, the amount of money that it generates quickly becomes ridiculous. I was able to completely finish the non-plot-related upgrades about half-way through the game. Collectively, they caused me to earn about 15,000 florins every 20 minutes. Until that point, the most expensive item that I'd seen was about 12,000 florins. The most expensive item in the entire game is only about 50,000 florins. As you can see, money is of little need once a certain point is reached.

I ended up deciding that I would get a perfect gamer score for the game. This was relatively easy due to the fact that there were only a few things that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise due to the nature of their achievement choices. Honestly, the most annoying part was probably the collecting of the 100 flowers. They aren't marked on any in-game map, but Games Radar politely provided a map of them all.

Overall, I'd say that if you liked the first Assassin's Creed, you'll probably also like the sequel. It generally improves on most everything about the first while removing most of the largest annoyances (such as repeated, extended travel over long distances). Of course, we do have another Halo 2 situation wherein there is quite obviously going to be a sequel and thus ends without resolution.

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So, I've been in Indiana for about a week now. I flew out on Xmas Eve and arrived later that day without any particular incident. Since then, I've mostly been relaxing and playing video games. I will talk about those games in the coming days, but first I would like to talk about the game that I finished most recently before leaving: Viva Piñata.

Viva Piñata is an open-ended game. I would compare it most readily to Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. In the game, you are given a plot of land which has grown fallow and are instructed to make a beautiful garden capable of attracting all manner of piñatas. To that end, you can plant various forms of flora, you can dig lakes, and other such things. Once you've managed to attract some piñatas to your garden, more options open up to you. You can "romance" piñatas. Romancing forces a small minigame, after which the piñatasgo to their racially designated house and perform the "romance dance" which in turn leads to the delivery of a piñata egg by the large woman wearing a stork hat. Also, some piñatas can only be attracted by having other kinds of piñatas in your garden for them to eat. For instance, the Lickatoad will only join your garden if you have a Taffly and it kills and eats it. This sort of progression continues on and up to even the very high level piñatas.

Since the game is open ended without any real victory condition, I had to choose my own. There were two obvious answers. First option: get to level 108. Level 108 would mean doing every possible thing in the game which provides experience. Second option: get all of the achievements in the game. I ended up choosing the second option.

Ultimately, I would say that the game is quite good at being what it is. It is an open-ended time-waster that manages to have a very good sense of humor. It is also old enough that the game can routinely be found for next to nothing. I believe I picked it up for approximately $15 from Newegg several months ago and would expect it to be similarly priced or lower elsewhere.

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On my way to CAS on Saturday, I decided to stop by Gamestop to pick up a game for my brother for Xmas. I requested it new and the person began pulling it out of the cabinet. I noticed that he had opened the case, presumably to place the disc in it, and asked for a sealed copy. Despite having at least a dozen copies of the game in the cabinet (that I could see in my brief look), not a single one was sealed. I told the employee to forget it and that I'd buy it elsewhere. He seemed somewhat put out by this, as though perhaps I had wasted his time, but I am not the one breaking the cases on dozens of games and then attempting to pass them off as new.

I ended up going to Target instead where they had the game that I was looking to find nice and sealed. I ended up deciding to pick up another game for him as well because Target's prices were discounted as compared to Gamestop. One of the games that I chose was rated M and they asked for a birthdate or a driver's license by the cashier. I was dumbstruck by the ridiculousness of being carded for buying a video game when I am quite obviously not a child. I gave them my birthdate, but the cashier was too incompetent to figure out how to input it correctly. I eventually gave them my driver's license to swipe because I wanted to get out quickly. I find it idiotic that I must give my driver's license to buy a video game. What is going on with the world? If a bought an R-rated movie, would I have been carded? What if I'd bought a steamy romance novel (an admittedly unlikely scenario)? How about a TV-MA show? I suspect that only one kind of media is being singled out.

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I currently play in a 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons game. In it, I am running a wizard. It turns out that there are two kinds of spell casting that wizards can do in fourth edition. The first kind consists basically of combat abilities: scorching burst, magic missle, thunderwave, shield and the like. The second kind of casting is called ritual casting and is where all of the real utility powers are. Things in this category include comprehend languages, Tensor's floating disk, enchant item, and resurrection.

Ritual casting is somewhat different than the combat skills. With the combat skills, you're basically stuck using a specific set for the entire game and only learn new ones by either gaining higher levels skills due to the standard leveling process or by retraining away one to replace it with another. Rituals, however, can be accumulated without any real limit. The strange thing about rituals is the set of rules that they operate under. For instance, if you find a ritual book, you cannot use it unless you spend eight uninterrupted hours studying it. This seems like a completely arbitrary number choosen only to limit spell gain to about 1 (maybe 2) per day. Next, if you find a ritual book and want to copy the rituals into your own ritual book (so that you aren't carrying around a library), you have to first master it, and then spend another 8 hours copying it into your own ritual book. I should note that the act of copying the ritual book requires an expenditure of gold equal to the cost of buy the ritual book outright. This rule leads to some interesting fridge logic. Firstly, it means that there is really no reason for anyone to ever go into the business of selling spell books: the books require the expediture of the ritual's base cost to make, plus the cost of the ritual book itself, plus time. Add to this the fact that the PHB specifically says that (PC created, at least) spellbooks sell for 10% of base cost and one quickly discovers that being in the business of making ritual books is a losing proposition. Apparently, there is someone out there flooding the market with ritual books at under cost. Also, it means that finding a book with rituals in it is a bit of a booby prize (I'm not complaing too much, Greg) because it basically gives you the options of lugging around another book or just having the opportunity to pay for all of the spells in it. It is, in a sense, an items with value that is difficult to adequately determine. Yes, you have access to new spells, but at the same time, you have some serious expenditure required to use them.

It seems like the only way any of this makes even the slightest bit of sense is in the context of the RPGA. My thinking is that the only reason to make copying spell books no cheaper than buying them is to prevent a specific kind of behavior which otherwise applies to information exchanges: ease of copyability. In the context of RPGA, characters are meeting and parting all of the time. Since at least two different roles are both ritual casters (Wizard/Controller and Cleric/Leader), there would be a decent chance of ritual casters appearing in the same game. If the copy cost were free, or even merely reduced, every RPGA game would begin with all of the ritual casters exchanging spells and spending a few pre-session days of game time copying the spells them. Ritual casters would quickly reach a critical mass wherein every ritual caster knew every ritual spell that they could cast at their level. A reduced cost case instead of a free case would lead to similar trouble insofar as it would reduce the effective cost of spells to whatever the reduced cost was so long as one could find another player with the appropriate spell and land in a game with them.

I don't think that the RPGA is a good enough reason to introduce such a glaring economic problem into a game system, but I doubt that Wizards of the Coast particularly care about my opinion.

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The week before last, I went out searching for a cheap copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Eventually, I found it through a British retailer (Zavvi) for what ended up being about $35 (PC version, of course). It arrived on Thursday and I began playing it through. I completed it late Saturday night, and was quite impressed. First, and most importantly, the gameplay is solid throughout. With a licensed title like this, there is a substantial chance of it being simply shovelwear. That isn't the case here at all. The game plays as a third person sneaker with melee combat and platforming (of the hookshot variety) being rather common. Over the course of the game, you slowly unlock additional combos, movement methods (such as a zipline), and the like.

Aesthetically, the game seems to fit perfectly in the Batman universe: the asylum is grim and dingy, lighting is poor, and inmates are in the drab brown one might expect. The game itself is an Unreal 3 Engine game, but is perhaps the best looking game to have come out of that engine yet (that I've played). It also seems to have overcome the texture pop-up issues that plagued earlier games (like UT3 and Last Remnant). What's most striking, though, are the character models of the villians. All of the models are new and unique, almost certainly due to the realistic nature the UT engine tends to inspire, but nevertheless are extremely good at evoking the characters in question even when the models are substantially different. As a prime example, I'd offer Harley Quinn. In B:TAS (where she originated), as well as in the comics into which she was imported, she tended toward a harlequin outfit of the skin-tight spandex form with a bi-color scheme. Here, she has something more along the lines of "crazy, slutty, catholic schoolgirl" complete with bi-color miniskirt, thigh-high boots (of matching color) and low cut blouse with excessive cleavage. This is a completely different model, but instantly it is recognizable at Harley even without her speaking. They've done this sort of update with all of Batman's Rouges Gallery that actually appears. In no case was I disappointed with the adaptation.

Finally, all of the voices are right. Batman is Kevin Conroy (who has been the DCAU Batman for like 15 years). The Joker is Mark Hamill. Quinn is Arleen Sorkin.

I recommend this game strongly.

Now, there are some things about it that I found frustrating. First, I never really grokked the combat system. I made most of my way through the game using only the basic strike without ever really advancing to the better moves. Also, the game uses a combo system that it fairly unforgiving. Missing a blow, for instance by Batman throwing a high punch above an enemy lying on the ground, causes the combo meter to reset. Being hit or waiting more than about half a second between blows will also reset the counter. This is especially frustrating with the game has an acheivement for getting the combo meter up to 40 (my best for the entire game was 36). I also never managed to understand when I was supposed to counter. The enemies have a trigger symbol over their head when I am supposed to be able to counter, but it seemed random as to whether the counter would work, be ignored completely, or result in my foolishly readying a batarang while in melee (due to the button for counter being shared with the alternate weapon button). Also, a couple of the true platforming puzzles that involve gliding seem to be arbitrary. I would seemingly repeat the same action several times with me coming up very short once or twice before making it on a later try with no obvious change in strategy. Lastly, I am sad that the game doesn't provide a "level select" option once the game is cleared. I can reenter the game even though I've finished, but since I have been everywhere and collected all of the collectables, I am left on an empty island almost entirely devoid even of enemies to fight.

Nevertheless, it is certainly one the better games that I've played recently. If you like Batman, buy it. If you like action games, buy it. If you like Mark Hamill making snarky comments in a crazy-person voice, buy it.

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Umbral Pirates.

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Since I've been out in California, I've been attending the Caltech Anime Society. Generally speaking, they've shown things that are pretty decent and I've continued to attend. However, during this same time period, I have been exposed to about six Lupin III movies or TV specials. For those of you unaware, the premise of Lupin III is that the titular character is the grandson of the Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin. Lupin the younger's characterization ranges from gentlemen thief (as in Miyazaki's Cagliostro) to...less so in other incarnations.

Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of movies, OVAs and TV specials, the Lupin III library is somewhat hit or miss. Given that the movie-length TV specials have been released at the rate of one per year for the last two decades, it isn't entirely suprising that they aren't all great. Regardless, there are at least a couple of them that I'd recommend. Firstly, if you haven't seen any of the rest of the series, I suggest starting with Episode 0: First Contact which was the 2002 OVA. It provides a backstory for how the main cast met as well as being one of the better specials. It hasn't been licensed in the US, but is available from the usual places. Obviously, I'd recommend Castle of Cagliostro because it is Lupin as proffered by Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Spirited Away). Once someone has seen both of these, they've managed to see both Green-jacket and Red-jacket Lupin, which means that Green Vs. Red might be viable. Green Vs. Red is really more of a deconstruction of Lupin than anything else, but is nonetheless quite good.

All of this commentary was triggered by the Lupin special that I watched this weekend, though: Lupin III vs. Detective Conan. Detective Conan is the titular character of the series of the same name (Case Closed in the US). Detective Conan is another long running series, though primarily in anime form. Conan has been ongoing on Japanese television since 1996 and currently has over 560 episodes. This particular special is a relatively standard cross over whose plot seems to have been cribbed somewhat from Cagliostro. Nevertheless, it is a decent Lupin movie even if I didn't get all of the Conan-specific jokes. It isn't a place to start, but at least seems to indicate that the series is still producing quality works.

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Yesterday, when I got home I didn't notice any package outside my door. A few hours later, when my landlord came to collect the rent check, there was a package there. At the time, I thought that I had simply not noticed it since it was opposite the door against the wall. Today, I got home from work around 6:15 and again noticed no package. About 30 minutes ago, I opened my front door and looked out and there was a package there. This time, however, it was 2 feet wide, 2 feet tall, and 4 feet long. I could not have missed this package because I would have had difficulty entering my apartment without stepping over it. Nevertheless, at some point between 6pm and 3am, my new printer arrived at my apartment without any fanfare or knocking. I am a bit confused.

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During the past two days, I have beaten two games. The first game was Professor Layton and the Curious Village. This game had been a birthday gift from Imani, so it got to jump in line once I finished 358/2 Days. The game itself is essentially a never-ending onslaught of puzzles. The game itself claims to have 120 numbered puzzles, of which I ultimately beat 102 of them (the remainder I was unable to find). The puzzles themselves vary widely. Some are word puzzles, some are math puzzles, at least one I solved using trigonometry. Most of the puzzles are clever, but I find that too many of them rely on imprecise wording to create their difficulty. In word puzzles, this is acceptable even perhaps expected. In peg-and-string puzzles, this becomes incredibly frustrating. Overall, I would say that it was a rather fun game, and would recommend it to people who like puzzles. Just be aware that the game has essentially zero replayability due to the fact that the puzzles themselves don't actually change.

The second game that I beat was Blue Dragon. Blue Dragon has been in the game in my 360 since the beginning of September. In general, it is a classic Japanese console RPG. It is perhaps most notable for its pedigree: its story was written by Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) and character designs by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest). Nevertheless, the game itself is quite average. Gameplay follows standard job-based JRPG tropes. I also had serious issues with the game's achievements. Most of them are of one of several forms: (1) Do something annoying perfectly, (2) Max out something, (3) Kill an optional boss that is ridiculously difficult. Eventually, I got tired of attempting to get 100% completion and just went and killed the final boss. Due to getting several of the type 2 achievements (maxing out all the jobs for all the characters), the final boss' second form never got a chance to attack me and the third/final form only got two actions before death. I had picked up the game relatively cheaply from Newegg at some point, but honestly I can't recommend the game. There are better RPGs for the 360 and this one doesn't really bring anything special to the table.

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I did some comparison shopping and I decided to switch to Geico for my auto insurance. They were about $50 cheaper than the revised Progressive rate, but still more expensive than the previous rate. The comparison shopping proved to be a bizarre experience. Esurance was about the same as Progressive. Allstate was about $100 more than Progressive/Esurance. Nationwide was about $200 more than Progressive. State farm's website gave me the middle finger in the form of the message We are unable to furnish an online quote with the information provided. Please forward your information to a State Farm agent who can help determine your insurance needs.

State Farm was also a bizarre one. About an hour after completing my Geico purchase, they called my telephone and wanted to talk about me getting a policy through them. I informed them that I had already bought through Geico and they asked if they could contact me in 6 months when it comes up for renewal. I made known my doubt that they would be competitive (when I was looking at insurance after moving out here, they were about double the lowest quote), but said that would be fine in order to get them off the phone faster.

State Farm agents must be really hurting if they are calling people who are getting quotes within mere hours of the quotes being issued. Doubly so if they are actually so desperate as to try to plan out future poaching.

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