I can't believe Halloween is almost upon us, which means it's time for making a new costume. I tossed around a few ideas with some new parameters. I'm looking to do a coordinated costume with The Girl that would be fairly easy to construct on limited time. Lee ended up going with a different theme (he's always wanted to do a good Jedi outfit and since we're not likely to be attending a nighttime costume event together, it made sense for him to splinter off this year). We considered a Portal 2 costume with me in the main character, Chell's, outfit and the baby as the cutest Portal gun ever. Instead we settled on a revisit of American McGee's Alice in Wonderland, only this time based on the second game, Alice: Madness Returns. Happily Alice has quite a wardrobe in the game, so I'll be able to wear a different style dress than the first goth Alice attempt. Due to fabric availability, I decided to go with this one: 
Meanwhile, Baby Girl will be my trusty White Rabbit. Only not quite as dementedly evil as the picture below.
I've already got a white rabbit outfit for her. I need to deck it out with a red waistcoat, top hat, a giant clock and gears. I've gotten my fabric for my dress and even a bought pattern that I'll be modifying to better replicate the steam dress. The stripey tights were relatively easy to buy and shockingly so were the shoes (thanks Spirit Halloween Store!). And Epic Weapons already makes the Vorpal Blade. Now all I need to do is get some sewing time. Whew.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Madness: Scaled back Halloween costuming
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
On the Eve of Madness
It's time for me to obsess on college basketball for my favorite time of the sports year: March Madness.
I'm only a mediocre basketball fan. I like basketball because of the fast pace of the scoring, but I only watch college basketball and I only really pay attention during March. There's always something dramatic about a 64 team, single elimination tournament. Unlike the NBA, I can keep track of which player is playing on which team. And each team has a particular identity and history. Because of the single elimination format, every game counts and the players treat it as such. I've even teared up during the 'One Shining Moment' segment CBS always puts together at the end of the Madness. It's cheesy, but I love it.
For full disclosure, I'm a Maryland Terrapins fan, I'll cheer for Cal and anyone playing against Duke. Last year I was entertained by the matchup between Cal and Maryland in the first round. Happily, Maryland won.
This year, Maryland is ranked 4th in the Midwest bracket. Sadly, I have them losing to my eventual winner, Kansas. Cal is up against Louisville in the first round but I don't have them getting past Duke. Just to spite Duke, I don't have them in my Final Four. They're overrated more often than not and this year is no exception. Muahahaha!
I much prefer being able to compare my picks against other people's, but I'll fill out a bracket regardless just so I can root for someone. Watching the games is more exciting that way.
Tomorrow is only a day away!
Friday, February 5, 2010
My Top Five Video Games of All Time
That's a daunting title. I went through an entire discussion in my head why I don't need to do this (and honestly I don't except for I wouldn't have this blog post otherwise). That stating my Top Five OF ALL TIME would commit me to supporting this post for the rest of my life even if I change my mind and I would end up with a miserable existence supporting something I knew to be a lie and I would never respect myself again.
Then I took a deep breath and talked myself into a better perspective; this list is for fun. My criteria for the games making this list is whether I remember playing the heck out of the game. There are many other good games I liked, but I didn't repeatedly play it. This can be a misleading metric for me because of my obsessive tendencies. I may play the heck out of a game merely because it's the phase I was in at the time, but it doesn't necessarily mean it was good or I really liked it. Don't ask.
On to the list.
Dragon Age: Origins
This is probably on here because I'm still currently playing the heck out of this game. It's the source of ridicule from my gaming friends (and husband) but I don't care. In typical fashion with BioWare games, I replay the game because I want to see the story as a good guy and a bad guy. I'm currently replaying Dragon Age as four different characters concurrently, one of which is an exact (but better looking version) of a character I've already played through. If the 'obsessions' part of this blog wasn't evident before, here's some proof.
Final Fantasy 12
While I'd played previous Final Fantasy games (8, 10, and 10-2 specifically), this one snuck up on me. It was already out by the time I noticed it and I didn't even rush out and get it. I really enjoyed the characters, particularly one whom I consider Square's best character to date: Balthier. I had my share of annoyances with the game, but he made it interesting enough for me to finish the game. The story itself left some room for improvement. Without that, I wouldn't have been motivated to write my own behind the scenes interpretations to explain what they didn't. Perhaps I should thank Square for rekindling my interest in writing.
Dance Dance Revolution Series
Thus begins my music/rhythm game fascination. I saw these mini dance club floors in the arcades and at first thought it was silly to call playing Simon Sez with your feet 'dancing'. Then I found the home version (I didn't really want to spend time and quarters learning it in the public arcades) and played it on our PS2. Since that first game, I collected the subsequent releases with new music. I could play it to the point of injury after which Lee counseled me to put it away for my own good. It just so happened that one of those later game discs provided a preview of another game that had you singing into a microphone and dancing. Which leads me to the next entry.
SingStar/Karaoke Revolution Series
I grew up being told I couldn't sing and making people cringe when I attempted. This is why I was a band geek all through middle and high school instead. But I think I had some of my grandfather in me and I couldn't just leave well enough alone. (My grandfather would take any party as an opportunity to serenade my grandmother to her feigned embarrassment.) These games measured my pitch and timing, giving me feedback as to how far off the mark I was so I could correct myself. As a result, I could learn the right notes to hit and maybe inspire less cringing. I'm still not going to perform like my sisters can, but my car singing may be more palatable. I also played these games to the point of hoarseness.
Guitar Hero/Rock Band
I wasn't initially interested in these when they were plastic guitars only. Once they added drums and allowed a group of four to play as a fake band, I was all over it. Knowing myself, I would have played the plastic guitar to the detriment of my hands. But playing the drums seemed more ergonomically friendly and I looked forward to banging on plastic drums. And if I got tired of drums, I could switch to the guitar or bass and when I got tired of that, I could drop back to singing. Turns out I had to fight Lee for the drums, so I play guitar/bass more often than not, but it's still fun.
That's the five games. Three of which are music series. This was originally meant to be a Top Ten, but I only came up with maybe seven. 'Top Seven' doesn't ring as nicely so I'm down to Top Five with a few honorable mentions.
Monkey Island Series
This is a set of adventure puzzle games featuring an atypical pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. Adventure puzzle games have been in decline for some time because it takes a lot of resources to produce and not very many people play it. Nevertheless, I was delighted when they developed some recent episodes to visit with Guybrush again. (I still have 4 of the 5 episodes to finish).
Knights of the Old Republic
Another BioWare game and possibly the first one of theirs that I played. Again, I played it more than once. But it makes it on this list because I will occasionally quote myself to hearken back to myself playing the game.*
*Language deliberately obtuse to prevent spoilers. I guess this is only funny to Lee because he's the only one who's heard me quote myself.
And I'm done. No one hold me to this list because I don't want to have to live a lie. But I'll take cake.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Fantastic Procrastinating
Found a new game to procrastinate on the web with. Or should that be 'Found a new game with which to procrastinate on the web'? Whatever.
I link you to Fantastic Contraption, a physics game where you can build contraptions to move a box/ball into a target zone with obstacles in the way ranging from empty space to objects. I haven't gotten through the 20 or so free levels, but I reserve the right to shell out the $10 for the full game at a later date. It's also available on iPhone/iPod.
Here's an example.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Cry Havoc and Let Loose the Tugs of War
Warning: You might want to turn your audio down before hitting play.
Unbeknownst to the folks at work, the 'cry havoc' part is standard operating procedure for tug of war games at my karate dojo. It's been reported to me after the picnic, that my strategy of psychological warfare at the front lines was actually pretty effective. I think the quote was "You're scary." I guess it doesn't hurt to be scary, screaming girl at the front when you're the smallest person on a team built for tug of war.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
My Brute
Cute Flash game I found today. Very low starting effort - you just have to put a name in and click on links. Fighting is completely automatic, you have no control on your attacks or defenses, no choice in weapons, character attributes or bonuses whatsoever.
But there's something compelling about watching cute characters dueling on a web page and rooting for the avatar that represents me. It's so fascinating, I've made two.
Go ahead, click a link and become one of my pupils:
Luna Rage
Quimine
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Video Games the Musical
We have finally succumbed to the Guitar Hero/Rock Band tidal wave of video games. I think it was the drums that did it. Oh and playing Guitar Hero World Tour (the full band version) at a friend's house. Aside from my lack of drumming skills, it was fun. We'd played Guitar Hero at another friend's house a few years ago, but with my repetitive stress issues with my wrists, I didn't think it would be healthy for me to injure myself on a video game, playing a mock instrument I hadn't previously expressed any interest in learning.
So when Guitar Hero added drums and vocals to their game, we perked up. Rock Band had already started out with the full band experience, but all reviews pointed to the guitar controllers of Guitar Hero being better made. After test playing it at the aforementioned friend's house, we headed out to Target and gave it to ourselves as a Christmas present. I later found out via internet research that the controllers for Guitar Hero World Tour would also work for Rock Band 2 so we got that also. After a few weeks of playing it, we've mostly switched over to Rock Band 2 (with Guitar Hero controllers) as our music game of choice.
Our music game collection (at my instigation) started with something very different: Dance Dance Revolution. I saw these in the arcades and movie theater lobbies and I was intrigued watching the people who were clearly very skilled at it. They had their water bottles and towels nearby, hopping in intricate patterns in time with the arrows scrolling by on the screen. In many cases they weren't even looking at the screen; they had memorized the steps from playing it so much. Over time, we bought the game and all subsequent releases, and even upgraded our flimsy dance pads to hard plastic ones in the quest for mastering harder and harder songs. Then, I pulled my Achilles tendon playing ultimate frisbee. Once I healed (many weeks later) I got back into my DDR habit only to find that it was painful. I have this weird quirk where I'll ignore non-excruciating pain when I'm really focused on achieving a goal (finishing a song or 15 in this case). I thought it might be best for my health if I put it away.
But there was a game preview on one of the Dance Dance Revolution games that bridged the way to my next music game obsession - Karaoke Revolution. With my dreams of Dance Dance Revolution divinity dashed, I turned to the less physically strenuous activity of singing. But it was more than just singing, this game would tell me when I was off pitch and possibly train me to sing more acceptably in bathroom acoustics. I come from a musical family. My sisters and mom are all trained singers, performing solos and in choirs, etc. My Lolo (grandfather on my dad's side) would always serenade my Lola (grandmother) whenever there was a microphone and an audience available. For my part, I once attempted singing in public, but it was probably an event best left to the bloopers reel.
At any rate, with practice in my own home and a scoring system, I got up enough confidence to agree to semi-regular karaoke parties at Todd and Ali's house complete with cocktails. Once again, I collected every version of Karaoke Revolution and SingStar games that they put out and have now started the collection on the Playstation 3.
This meanders me back to the Guitar Hero/Rock Band 2 acquisition. The nice thing about the band experience is that if my arms start to hurt from the guitar, I can switch to the drums and even if that starts hurting, I can fall back to the singing. Nothing like cross-training to keep the music flowing. According to Lee, who has actually been part of a rock band, the games actually do a decent simulation of the cohesive feeling playing in a band and trying to keep the songs together. I suspect, having never been in a rock band, that the real thing did not require near blinding focus on little colored bars or dots scrolling by on the screen (concert band, marching band, pep band, jazz band: yes. rock band: no. Yes, I was once a band geek, why do you ask?).
Rock Band 2 seems to do a better job at actually teaching beginners how to work with the instruments than Guitar Hero does. They have tutorials on the disk for guitar, vocals and drums - how to read the symbols on the screen, how to make the guitar work and beginner practice sessions and even trickier tips for the more advanced. For the drummers, they have a whole series of beats and rhythms to practice without getting scored. It also has a wider selection of downloadable songs for pay. We've probably spent an additional $20 on additional songs for Rock Band 2 and haven't bought any for Guitar Hero.
There's character creations for both games. A friend of mine insists on creating as close of a personal likeness as he can, while I prefer trying on the craziest outfits I can find. I did try creating myself in Rock Band 2 this past weekend and my normal t-shirt and jeans just doesn't look like it belongs on that sort of stage. I figure if I were actually a rock star, I would have a wardrobe and makeup to match the production level of the concert. I might be more casual for a small bar setting and crazy glammed out for an amphitheatre setting. My latest phase is creating my favorite video game characters so that I can watch them rock out in this video game.
One thing I don't think these music video games does is teach you how to play the actual instrument. Perhaps vocals might be the closest, because you're actually using the real thing - your voice. But as I said earlier, it mostly helps you find the right pitches in song rather than teach you how to sing well. Drums might be the next closest. There are fewer drums in the game than you can actually play in a drum set. But it does make you practice rhythms and coordinating your eyes, hands and one foot to follow the screen. While they do provide you with real drumsticks, I'm sure the drums themselves have a completely different feel. The guitar is the farthest away from the real thing. Unless of course you take away five of the strings on a real guitar and make that remaining string really thick. Interestingly, a lot of my friends who actually do play guitar seem to enjoy the mock guitar playing anyway.
I don't have any delusions that I'm going to take my music game prowess on a public stage, but it combines my love of music, satisfaction in improving a skill and the capability to gather with some friends and enjoy an evening of gaming. Who ever said gamers can't be social?