Dream 2010-04-12
Summary:
Mal works for a space mine, enters a dimensional portal, meets creatures that seem to have come from "Dinosaurs"
Details:
Mostly fuzzy; But I remember this space mine working on some sort of larger extrasolar object in some small star system; It was a rather rich deposit of extremely rare and non-natural elements (that's right, this SOB had naturally occurring elements heavier than uranium!) so, they were mining it for fuel. Well, Nathan Fillion apparently was the star of this episode (Damn you, Captain Hammer!) and after losing his wife and kids in some sort of car-accident; he continued working his mining job. Well, someone discovered an anomaly, some sort of portal, and after some testing they decided to send a human in without telling any outsiders. Being a space mine, you go to the place to work, and don't return for quite some time, so this was easy to keep secret, always a lot of illicit practices in these sorts of "prying eye" isolated situations.
The backdrops looked like any stereotypical deep earth mine, large steel girders lining large elevator shafts, domed, reinforced ceilings and plenty of weird looking mine equipment (I've been in a few myself, so if you've never been in a mine, look it up!). Well, the anomaly was just some sort of large blurred region of space, and, well they voted Mal up to jump in, since he had nothing to lose. Would certainly end his pain or make him a hero, so why not? He obviously didn't feel that way, but, eventually consented and in a rather Mal-like way, just ran into the damn thing with no warning.
Well, upon entering the other side, it was a direct seamless transition to this darker world, there was breathable air, survivable pressure (~1.2 atm, similar to being under 2m of water on earth), and reasonable temperature (~87 F). Well, comically, the portal was above ground, and lands our hero in a are filled with cycad like trees. Naturally, he was now screwed as he could not get back up to the portal, and wanders around. Eventually, he finds he is near an ocean, and can see civilization by the hallmark of regular geometric shapes being constructed near the sea shore. Upon investigating, he finds all of the structures heavily damaged by some sort of raging sea current, and promptly leaves after finding some really disturbing skeletal parts; Not human, but some sort of alien/dinosaur like parts.
The sky in this are was black, grey at the edges, but seemed to emit light ambiently, as if there was light coming from the sky, but it was only visible in reflections off the earth. There were no stars visible, the sea was also black, must be some odd light-absorbing pigments in the world chemistry;
Well, this part gets a little fuzzy, but somehow Mal runs into this teenage dinosaur, and they become allies, and he introduces him to their world, and becomes some sort of science project, blah blah generic plot basically. Mal almost gets into a fight with a small gang of dinosaurs, but being Mal smart talks them out of it, gaining respect from the gang. I remember something about deeply rooted political messages, environmental concerns, societal oddities about sex and crudeness; Was a really interesting situation;
But! His friend helps him get back to the portal, so he can return home, which the mining company didn't expect, but he brought back a few artifacts to prove he was gone, and destroys access to the portal (to save his friends in the other world).
So yeah, the social parts were hazy at best; not 100% sure what actually happened, though it would be trivial for any Firefly fan to fill in the gaps with some terrible fanfic writing.
-Z
2010-04-12
2010-04-01
Dream: Splinter Silent Snake Solid Hill Cell
Dream: 2010-04-01
Summary:
Recurring dream mixing metal gear and splinter cell and silent hill
Details:
This is a recurring dream; as such, the majority of events are similar to all the previous reincarnations of the dream, with only minor changes. I'd say it's very graphic, and horrible. (how often do you get to disembowel things anyways?) Definitely nightmare quality.
So, the dream usually starts out, you take the movie-role of this gray haired, grizzled marine in his 60's; Getting a debrief from president Kennedy about a mission to stop a Russian bioweapon from being released. Your main character looks a lot like a regular chisel jawed blond haired blue eyed German marine, constant fatigues, side bowie knife, a poker face that could break glass, and plenty of gnarled features indicating a slew of victories. Always looks angry though, the beret slightly off kilter, as if asking any young punk with enough balls to mention that was the wrong angle, just to start a fight.
Kennedy gave you a top secret clearance, and this dark green folder with information on this russian woman (naturally in a black latex suit with dark red hair and goth-style accenture; d-cup) who is in charge of the train shipment of the materials needed to create the bioweapon.
You repeatedly ask for more information on the bioweapon, as it is obvious no marine can withstand that kind of weaponry, a bit like trying to punch a landmine. No information is given, apparently this whole thing is hush-hush since it would severely escalate tensions.
Switch scenes to a large cargo plane, four engines and a regular "Red Cross" drop mission of aid, with you secretly stowed on board; jumping off for a night skydrop to land deep in a pine forest, silently, and with plenty of guns and ammo to take out a small militia.
At this point I'll describe the scenery to get an idea of the feelings invoked, since text leaves a lot of detail out. It's about 0320 (sun relative time), damp is forming on all the leaves, you can feel the earth cooling; but it was mid-summer, so the respite from burning heat is welcome. At night, you can hear trucks in the distance, men barking commands, the train had stopped here, secretly, the moon was not out, so darkness was impressive, seeing farther than 20 or more feet was impossible, what lay in the unknown was a mystery; it was likely there were infra-red autoturrets posted around the site, more than likely landmines or classic beartraps laid to thwart and unprepared soldier; classic tripwires and claymores a traditional favorite. All of the trees were dark and tall, traditional pines, the forest floor was mostly cleared; unsure why. There was a rich smell of damp in the air, mostly the dew pervading. Knowing this mission was essentially suicide, as you were ordered to stop this train and shipment at all costs didn't help your mentality; smoking would simply trip an alarm and get you shot early.
Moving cautiously, using all of your available skill to avoid the assumed traps; luckily there were none. There were only 6 guards, and only off duty ones. The train may contain secrets, but would it be better to follow the train to it's destination and discover where the base was, using your e-rad to signal your location?
Apparently, you decide to sneak onto the train, and quickly find out that is impossible; as the train is a unusual design, it looks out of place, a futuristic, slightly blue steel color; No visible doors or windows, it had the feel of an airstream trailer, but quite a few of them connected.
Somehow there is a gap in memory, and it's 1240, afternoon sun glaring down producing a high 90's heat. You had found the camp, and damaged the rail tracks so the train could not make it's shipment, and radioed the position, all without being seen, detected, or killing/alerting anyone. Now you wanted blood; you could see your female target having a cigarette with an AK-47 slung across her back; she was still wearing the ridiculous black leather getup, lol fanservice I guess. Anyways, you strafe one of the smaller buildings, to get a look inside and see if you can start causing some havok; well, inside of this "small" building is a solid black cat; it approaches you, it's rather friendly. Inside the building is a darker red metal decor, lots of white plastic spherical containers and hoses connecting them, leading to a side chamber. This was no building, it was a gas chamber to test the bioweapon.
Immediately you move to sneak out, but the door slams shut and the alarms and lights go off; gas of a light yellow color begins to come from some of the hoses. You whip out your mask and use the cat to determine what the gas would do; holding it with a knife to it's neck so you wouldn't make it suffer too much. The cat seems annoyed, but entirely unaffected by the gas. IT wasn't an irritant, or mutagen, or anything obvious; You put the cat down, the room now hazy with this thick gas; it doesn't stick to you skin either. Time splits, since this is a dream, and you become two instances in time, one of them NOT having entered the chamber, and sneaking to a larger building, the other entering the secondary chamber ,where there were larger plastic cylinders and spheres with other colored chemicals. In that reality, the cat follows and a door from nowhere slams shut like a guillotine; and a greenish gas pours out, immediately burning the skin like fire; the poor cat's eyes begin to melt and it begins hacking up blood, so you mercifully cut it's head off; then quickly gut the can and use it's hide to protect other regions on your body while you wait for the gas to time out. The green gas left unusual burns on the skin, but otherwise seemed to just be a extremely toxic agent. Well, in that reality, turns out the gas penetrates clothing, and while you are basically chemically burned alive, searing agonizing pain; trying to break the door down or stop the system or just escape, you cant, and get to suffer the agony of death, and fail your mission.
Now imagine for a moment, YOU were that person. And also assume that you could not tell it wasn't a dream (lucid). You're trapped in a sold metal box, nothing but dangerous storage vats of chemicals in the corners and ceiling, tubing piping a agent capable of melting your epidermis, And the door is magnetically sealed, and at least a centimeter thick. Unhinged and sliding into the other side about a half a foot too. Basically, you are dying a horrible death, and there is nothing you can do about it. Isn't that lovely?
Now, since this dream had that parallelism moment, let's continue with the dude who DIDN'T poke into the wrong building.
Upon sneaking into this larger facility, which was very poorly lit, only small red lights here and there, dimly illuminating what looked like a power facility, larger generators and tanks, narrow walkways and halls, a more concrete underground feeling. Eventually, you run into a larger section of hallway, some 20x20 ft, and see two guards talking, but one of them is beating the hell out of the other, which isn't even fighting back. Then, this sick thing happens, and the winning guard pulls out this jar and jams it into the other guys gut; Cue class gut-worm scene; this small, 8 inch long alien parasite of some kind tears the victim open, and begins threading itself through and consuming all of the poor bastards innards. Being undetected at this point, and pretty sure of victory, you run in and kill the other guard,kicking his body away and go to kill the other in another mercy kill, just like that cat (that in this reality, you did NOT kill but it is silently following you). But when you turn, the worm had grown at a unprecedented rate, you could see it moving around under the skin, blood and scraps leaking fluids as the guard just stares off, trying to scream without lungs in a agonized expression; seeming to be saying something important, but then the work gets to his brain, and pokes out an eye, blood gushing out and littering the face with brain bits. You ignore the posse, this is getting too weird, and you take a service elevator down a floor; The elevator had red lights, and was large, build for moving trucks it looked like. So much for being unannounced, but luckily, down here there was nothing but a few mech-armors and not many guards; This place held missile components for delivering the bio weapon. Solid snaking your way around, you simply murder guard after guard, leaving only the mechs to take out. Nothing you had could even get close to stopping them, so you continue onto the next room, which was a very large bi-level room with many smaller rooms, kind of like the stack/library in goldeneye. Well, it was still dimly lit in red, and in the middle of this giant empty room was some sort of weird reactor with seats in it ala borg style. You get noticed, and it becomes a intense firefight, you using a traditional revolver in favor of automatic weapons, since you didn't spray and pray, you killed. Eventually, whats her face walks in (leather chick) and talks to you in russian; sadly I can't understand it; nor do I have any way to reproduce it.
Well, turns out she is an alien queen, and had given the russians the keys to making this mutagen that would allow her to generate parasites across the world, and consume our race like we do mcdonalds hamburgers.
Like hell any US marine would let that shit happen, buuuuut we're not talking about an analyst here. Jumping down to take out the queen, you're electrocuted by the floor grid; A simple trap meant to take out aggressive morons. Lucky for you, as you lay there incapacitated on the floor, you see the black cat walk in, parasite sticking out of it's mouth, guiding it. The alien queen comes over and drops a worm on you, and it tears your guts out so you can feel how horrible the pain of death is before it damages your brain past the point of cognizance.
But, like a US Marine, you totally fucked her over. You didn't shoot her, because you unpinned a few grenades first. BLAM!
You eliminated the queen and the machine, saved your country.
The end. Or is it?
What makes me chuckle, is modern games are way more graphical than this in terms of content, but in terms of immersion? Hardly. You'd have to look at some older games to really get a good creepout or scare; simply because the composition for immersion is a very delicate balance and very hard/expensive to get right.
I hope some game house recognizes this and cranks out a decently silent-hill style game.
-Z
Summary:
Recurring dream mixing metal gear and splinter cell and silent hill
Details:
This is a recurring dream; as such, the majority of events are similar to all the previous reincarnations of the dream, with only minor changes. I'd say it's very graphic, and horrible. (how often do you get to disembowel things anyways?) Definitely nightmare quality.
So, the dream usually starts out, you take the movie-role of this gray haired, grizzled marine in his 60's; Getting a debrief from president Kennedy about a mission to stop a Russian bioweapon from being released. Your main character looks a lot like a regular chisel jawed blond haired blue eyed German marine, constant fatigues, side bowie knife, a poker face that could break glass, and plenty of gnarled features indicating a slew of victories. Always looks angry though, the beret slightly off kilter, as if asking any young punk with enough balls to mention that was the wrong angle, just to start a fight.
Kennedy gave you a top secret clearance, and this dark green folder with information on this russian woman (naturally in a black latex suit with dark red hair and goth-style accenture; d-cup) who is in charge of the train shipment of the materials needed to create the bioweapon.
You repeatedly ask for more information on the bioweapon, as it is obvious no marine can withstand that kind of weaponry, a bit like trying to punch a landmine. No information is given, apparently this whole thing is hush-hush since it would severely escalate tensions.
Switch scenes to a large cargo plane, four engines and a regular "Red Cross" drop mission of aid, with you secretly stowed on board; jumping off for a night skydrop to land deep in a pine forest, silently, and with plenty of guns and ammo to take out a small militia.
At this point I'll describe the scenery to get an idea of the feelings invoked, since text leaves a lot of detail out. It's about 0320 (sun relative time), damp is forming on all the leaves, you can feel the earth cooling; but it was mid-summer, so the respite from burning heat is welcome. At night, you can hear trucks in the distance, men barking commands, the train had stopped here, secretly, the moon was not out, so darkness was impressive, seeing farther than 20 or more feet was impossible, what lay in the unknown was a mystery; it was likely there were infra-red autoturrets posted around the site, more than likely landmines or classic beartraps laid to thwart and unprepared soldier; classic tripwires and claymores a traditional favorite. All of the trees were dark and tall, traditional pines, the forest floor was mostly cleared; unsure why. There was a rich smell of damp in the air, mostly the dew pervading. Knowing this mission was essentially suicide, as you were ordered to stop this train and shipment at all costs didn't help your mentality; smoking would simply trip an alarm and get you shot early.
Moving cautiously, using all of your available skill to avoid the assumed traps; luckily there were none. There were only 6 guards, and only off duty ones. The train may contain secrets, but would it be better to follow the train to it's destination and discover where the base was, using your e-rad to signal your location?
Apparently, you decide to sneak onto the train, and quickly find out that is impossible; as the train is a unusual design, it looks out of place, a futuristic, slightly blue steel color; No visible doors or windows, it had the feel of an airstream trailer, but quite a few of them connected.
Somehow there is a gap in memory, and it's 1240, afternoon sun glaring down producing a high 90's heat. You had found the camp, and damaged the rail tracks so the train could not make it's shipment, and radioed the position, all without being seen, detected, or killing/alerting anyone. Now you wanted blood; you could see your female target having a cigarette with an AK-47 slung across her back; she was still wearing the ridiculous black leather getup, lol fanservice I guess. Anyways, you strafe one of the smaller buildings, to get a look inside and see if you can start causing some havok; well, inside of this "small" building is a solid black cat; it approaches you, it's rather friendly. Inside the building is a darker red metal decor, lots of white plastic spherical containers and hoses connecting them, leading to a side chamber. This was no building, it was a gas chamber to test the bioweapon.
Immediately you move to sneak out, but the door slams shut and the alarms and lights go off; gas of a light yellow color begins to come from some of the hoses. You whip out your mask and use the cat to determine what the gas would do; holding it with a knife to it's neck so you wouldn't make it suffer too much. The cat seems annoyed, but entirely unaffected by the gas. IT wasn't an irritant, or mutagen, or anything obvious; You put the cat down, the room now hazy with this thick gas; it doesn't stick to you skin either. Time splits, since this is a dream, and you become two instances in time, one of them NOT having entered the chamber, and sneaking to a larger building, the other entering the secondary chamber ,where there were larger plastic cylinders and spheres with other colored chemicals. In that reality, the cat follows and a door from nowhere slams shut like a guillotine; and a greenish gas pours out, immediately burning the skin like fire; the poor cat's eyes begin to melt and it begins hacking up blood, so you mercifully cut it's head off; then quickly gut the can and use it's hide to protect other regions on your body while you wait for the gas to time out. The green gas left unusual burns on the skin, but otherwise seemed to just be a extremely toxic agent. Well, in that reality, turns out the gas penetrates clothing, and while you are basically chemically burned alive, searing agonizing pain; trying to break the door down or stop the system or just escape, you cant, and get to suffer the agony of death, and fail your mission.
Now imagine for a moment, YOU were that person. And also assume that you could not tell it wasn't a dream (lucid). You're trapped in a sold metal box, nothing but dangerous storage vats of chemicals in the corners and ceiling, tubing piping a agent capable of melting your epidermis, And the door is magnetically sealed, and at least a centimeter thick. Unhinged and sliding into the other side about a half a foot too. Basically, you are dying a horrible death, and there is nothing you can do about it. Isn't that lovely?
Now, since this dream had that parallelism moment, let's continue with the dude who DIDN'T poke into the wrong building.
Upon sneaking into this larger facility, which was very poorly lit, only small red lights here and there, dimly illuminating what looked like a power facility, larger generators and tanks, narrow walkways and halls, a more concrete underground feeling. Eventually, you run into a larger section of hallway, some 20x20 ft, and see two guards talking, but one of them is beating the hell out of the other, which isn't even fighting back. Then, this sick thing happens, and the winning guard pulls out this jar and jams it into the other guys gut; Cue class gut-worm scene; this small, 8 inch long alien parasite of some kind tears the victim open, and begins threading itself through and consuming all of the poor bastards innards. Being undetected at this point, and pretty sure of victory, you run in and kill the other guard,kicking his body away and go to kill the other in another mercy kill, just like that cat (that in this reality, you did NOT kill but it is silently following you). But when you turn, the worm had grown at a unprecedented rate, you could see it moving around under the skin, blood and scraps leaking fluids as the guard just stares off, trying to scream without lungs in a agonized expression; seeming to be saying something important, but then the work gets to his brain, and pokes out an eye, blood gushing out and littering the face with brain bits. You ignore the posse, this is getting too weird, and you take a service elevator down a floor; The elevator had red lights, and was large, build for moving trucks it looked like. So much for being unannounced, but luckily, down here there was nothing but a few mech-armors and not many guards; This place held missile components for delivering the bio weapon. Solid snaking your way around, you simply murder guard after guard, leaving only the mechs to take out. Nothing you had could even get close to stopping them, so you continue onto the next room, which was a very large bi-level room with many smaller rooms, kind of like the stack/library in goldeneye. Well, it was still dimly lit in red, and in the middle of this giant empty room was some sort of weird reactor with seats in it ala borg style. You get noticed, and it becomes a intense firefight, you using a traditional revolver in favor of automatic weapons, since you didn't spray and pray, you killed. Eventually, whats her face walks in (leather chick) and talks to you in russian; sadly I can't understand it; nor do I have any way to reproduce it.
Well, turns out she is an alien queen, and had given the russians the keys to making this mutagen that would allow her to generate parasites across the world, and consume our race like we do mcdonalds hamburgers.
Like hell any US marine would let that shit happen, buuuuut we're not talking about an analyst here. Jumping down to take out the queen, you're electrocuted by the floor grid; A simple trap meant to take out aggressive morons. Lucky for you, as you lay there incapacitated on the floor, you see the black cat walk in, parasite sticking out of it's mouth, guiding it. The alien queen comes over and drops a worm on you, and it tears your guts out so you can feel how horrible the pain of death is before it damages your brain past the point of cognizance.
But, like a US Marine, you totally fucked her over. You didn't shoot her, because you unpinned a few grenades first. BLAM!
You eliminated the queen and the machine, saved your country.
The end. Or is it?
What makes me chuckle, is modern games are way more graphical than this in terms of content, but in terms of immersion? Hardly. You'd have to look at some older games to really get a good creepout or scare; simply because the composition for immersion is a very delicate balance and very hard/expensive to get right.
I hope some game house recognizes this and cranks out a decently silent-hill style game.
-Z
2010-03-30
Dream - Really? FF13 dreams already?
Dream: 2010-03-30
Summary:
While working out at a new gym, it turned into some sort of FF13 game.
Details:
Apparently I started at the gym; well, it wasn't an ordinary gym, it seemed to have a very tall ceiling like one of those large superwalmart buildings, and plenty of mercury bulb lighting, keeping the entire indoor place lit well. It was also confusing, because equipment was next to kiosks that were selling workout equipment; apparently, you just grabbed what you needed and paid when you left; they had all sorts of machines and freeweights; it was a pretty cool little place. I started out on some 35 freeweights to warm up, and ran into Jennifer; apparently she was running the place, so we chatted for a while, then Mike D. showed up so we started running around the track, but he got distracted because one of his old buds was on a barlift machine; so he stopped running to chat, and I continued lapping. I grabbed some weights with triggers on them, and continued running, apparently these weights were inertial increaser's; they had gyroscopes so they could alter the resistance to change in direction, which was a weird feeling. After a few more laps, I walked over to the heavier machines to cool down, since nobody was over there, so I thought. I ran into an old friend, Randy M., so we talked for a bit, he seemed to be doing well.
Well, I also ran into Caleb, and he talked about his new job and some other nonsense, and I was about to continue running, when on the end of one of the later laps, out of nowhere Kami appeared; Not the lung-style kami, but the new anthroid-chubby version. I laughed, and went to have a conversation, but as anticipated, the dragon noshed on the nearest redshirt (nobody I knew) then attempted to take me out. Luckily, he was in a rule-restricted area, so I could easily dodge his attack. Then everyone started screaming, and these really strange alien creatures began to enter the gym; Things then turned into final fantasy 13 style; I was the leader, of a special class "Assist" though they abbreviated it "ARC" instead of, well. Kami joined my party as a "Power" class, which was also special, denoted "VOR".
Well, we ran into our first encounter, attempting to wipe out the invaders to save the people at the gym (mind you, everything is in full HD at this point, every whisker, blade of fur, gnarled expression and clothing was maximum detail and behaved graphically like any commercial movie). The creatures were apparently 3 legged insect like aliens, of a drab brown color holding some sort of purple-raygun weapon, with beady black eyes and tentacles for mouths. In fact, the looked something like a mutated vortigaunt + maraisreq monster; I wasn't sure why but they also had on weak armor like leather or something. In either case, when we entered the battle, the music naturally went from "06 - The turn storm of road canyon.mp3" (Choro Q HG 1) to "Blinded By Light" (FF13 battle music). I was acting mostly like Snow, I had no weapons so I ran over and beat the hell out of it since Assist class has instant preemptive no matter what. Kami just kinda sat up, apparently starting the battle in a sleeping position, and fidgeted his paws together; The alien fired a beam, a nice shiny purple effect, I dodged quickly. On the next turn, Kami used "Water Blast"; a very high level water magic attack, and being an Assist I augmented with "Spark", so that the combined damage was water + electrical, and did a large factor more than it would have alone. The bug was vanquished, we got points, and moved on.
Then my alarm went off before I could continue playing the game *sadface*
Was kinda nice to team up with RPG characters that don't completely suck. A tad unfair, but who's counting?
-Z
Summary:
While working out at a new gym, it turned into some sort of FF13 game.
Details:
Apparently I started at the gym; well, it wasn't an ordinary gym, it seemed to have a very tall ceiling like one of those large superwalmart buildings, and plenty of mercury bulb lighting, keeping the entire indoor place lit well. It was also confusing, because equipment was next to kiosks that were selling workout equipment; apparently, you just grabbed what you needed and paid when you left; they had all sorts of machines and freeweights; it was a pretty cool little place. I started out on some 35 freeweights to warm up, and ran into Jennifer; apparently she was running the place, so we chatted for a while, then Mike D. showed up so we started running around the track, but he got distracted because one of his old buds was on a barlift machine; so he stopped running to chat, and I continued lapping. I grabbed some weights with triggers on them, and continued running, apparently these weights were inertial increaser's; they had gyroscopes so they could alter the resistance to change in direction, which was a weird feeling. After a few more laps, I walked over to the heavier machines to cool down, since nobody was over there, so I thought. I ran into an old friend, Randy M., so we talked for a bit, he seemed to be doing well.
Well, I also ran into Caleb, and he talked about his new job and some other nonsense, and I was about to continue running, when on the end of one of the later laps, out of nowhere Kami appeared; Not the lung-style kami, but the new anthroid-chubby version. I laughed, and went to have a conversation, but as anticipated, the dragon noshed on the nearest redshirt (nobody I knew) then attempted to take me out. Luckily, he was in a rule-restricted area, so I could easily dodge his attack. Then everyone started screaming, and these really strange alien creatures began to enter the gym; Things then turned into final fantasy 13 style; I was the leader, of a special class "Assist" though they abbreviated it "ARC" instead of, well. Kami joined my party as a "Power" class, which was also special, denoted "VOR".
Well, we ran into our first encounter, attempting to wipe out the invaders to save the people at the gym (mind you, everything is in full HD at this point, every whisker, blade of fur, gnarled expression and clothing was maximum detail and behaved graphically like any commercial movie). The creatures were apparently 3 legged insect like aliens, of a drab brown color holding some sort of purple-raygun weapon, with beady black eyes and tentacles for mouths. In fact, the looked something like a mutated vortigaunt + maraisreq monster; I wasn't sure why but they also had on weak armor like leather or something. In either case, when we entered the battle, the music naturally went from "06 - The turn storm of road canyon.mp3" (Choro Q HG 1) to "Blinded By Light" (FF13 battle music). I was acting mostly like Snow, I had no weapons so I ran over and beat the hell out of it since Assist class has instant preemptive no matter what. Kami just kinda sat up, apparently starting the battle in a sleeping position, and fidgeted his paws together; The alien fired a beam, a nice shiny purple effect, I dodged quickly. On the next turn, Kami used "Water Blast"; a very high level water magic attack, and being an Assist I augmented with "Spark", so that the combined damage was water + electrical, and did a large factor more than it would have alone. The bug was vanquished, we got points, and moved on.
Then my alarm went off before I could continue playing the game *sadface*
Was kinda nice to team up with RPG characters that don't completely suck. A tad unfair, but who's counting?
-Z
2010-03-06
Dream - Terahertz Sono-wave gaming machine
Summary:
Goathouse, me, and some of my other friends were at some drunk party, it seemed like we were in Canada and the bars were really slow, so it was about 5:30 am, and we drove to this gaming place that had been raved about (~2030, but we're still in our 20's). This huge gaming place has a large TeraHertz gaming server that linked you into the game with both mouse, keyboard, and a brain-link (looked like a plastic necklace) to allow the game to read your input before you actually make it. It didn't "put you in the game" but it was as close as is physically possible (you were still sitting down staring at a screen (4k screen))
Details:
I don't remember much about the party, except brien, john, jay, zach, kelly, adam, and probably everyone else were drinking a lot, I had too much already so I was on the floor (as usual); Somehow our drunken mobility decided we should play games since the only two chicks present were dumb. We had all heard about this new "synthesis" gaming experience, and somehow we all drove there.
When we got there, it was this big decorated building in white, with lots of industrial pipe decor, something right out of universal studios or something. After going though a regular queuing line (not many people there at 5:30am) we entered, and inside was a large guest room and a initiator room, full of computers (from a yet-nonexistent company; they were *nix though). Inside there were the two guys responsible for training people to use the machines, some regular fat unix looking dude (beard, scraggly, glasses) and a more normal dude. (no chicks in the VR business, save for Nisha, which was the goth-type; she worked in the server room. cute!) Well, we all took our places, and they talked to us about safety, how the device worked, and what the hardware was; meanwhile Supreme Commander 3 or something played on our monitors, showing us what possibility the games interface had. We were all given a necklace that laced over the shoulders like a seatbelt, so it could monitor our heart and safely disconnect us if things go too intense. There was also this V-shaped plastic thing that we wore on our necks, that connected to the VR interface fort (some sort of SATA looking connection). This device was responsible for reading our brain waves; and giving the game the appropriate data stream.
So, after getting lectured about problems we might encounter, and how to shut off the device (apparently, some people can't handle being "in" the game) we were moved into the next room once the previous group was finished.
The next room was all black, save for the soft glow of many high resolution computer monitors (4096x4096 displays, at least 25 inches wide). Each computer station was put behind a plexiglass wall, which contained the tera-server, running inside a bath of liquid nitrogen. the thing was the size of a van, and goth chick was constantly checking it every 15 minutes (in a suit :( ). The room had a tall ceiling too, was cool as well. Well, we each sat down, had 15 seconds to connect to the game then WHAM
IT started off as Unreal Tournament Tera-Edition; And we were all running around in a familiar setting blasting eachother with familiar weapons. It looked great, all the monitors were 3D, and the gameplay was fluid as always. However, what was happening was the brain reader was calibrating; by using a known experience, it can use that as the heuristic to generate the 'next best' scenario, and get used to your mind. Eventually, I no longer needed to use the keyboard or mouse to control my character, but had hands ready just in case. The unreal part was fine, but I ran away from the fight, wondering just what kind of virtual world this was. Apparently, just around the corner for unreal world was medieval world; a place full of Dragon-Age type shit; swords, magic, magicians, plague, dragons. All the generic stuff. The seamless transition was really something else, I just ran in there, fully armed in unreal tournament gear, and began running around the town shooting down guards. Eventually the game adapted, and it took away my gear (Unfair Use Justification Award) so I was now a peasant trying to stop a feudal government. Along the way, one of the AI people helped me out, and don't get me wrong, the AI was as real as another person in this game. IT could talk, interact, think and do all by itself. Gone are t he days of state based AI, now we have true organic processors that act alive (in a scarily realistic way). So, we and this other peasant start sneaking around, picking off guards using our knowledge of tactic; The AI player copied me and learned really fast; We eventually snuck our way into the armory, and found a treasure vault. Meanwhile, some other unreal players ran by outside, just continuing to fight eachother ignoring they were messing up medieval world. So, after stealing lots of money (the game felt real now, you know how that works when you get "into" a game) we tried to escape, but the guards were on us. WE could run faster though, and escaped outside and got to the top of the buildings quickly. The guards were real hesitant to follow us (soled shoes suck on mud roofs); so clambering onto the roofs we could see for miles; the entire kingdom of medieval world; the border of Jurassic world across a small river, the b order to jungle world up north, the "dead sea" (the admins told us the world did not wrap; it terminated and anyone going into or above the dead sea would be eaten ala Spore.) And the unreal world, with projectiles constantly going AWOL like fireworks. There was only one dragon in the air, but it didn't seem interested in what we were doing. So, after jumping around from roof to roof (the medieval buildings were 50+ ft tall, and made of very thick mud and concrete, supposedly a game design decision) I found that there was a giant golden cannon hidden atop a tower that we could get to, so after clambering around (I found a diamond, +5000 points) I aladdin'd my way down to the ground, still running from guards, pushing people away. The guards stopped taking interest in me, as my AI friend had got upitsnacthed by that flying lizard. They were busy, so I ran over to the cannon, and once I managed to get to the top via lots of hardcore mario platforming, I got a LEVEL SELECT. Which, I could preview any area I wanted, to see what there was in this unbelievably huge world to explore.
From memory, There was Unreal world, Jurassic World, Medieval World, Jungle World, Ice world, Air world (high skyscrapers & scaffolds), Slug world, Fusion world, Food world, Random world, Dark world, and quite a few others. Each world had it's own creatures, people, and AI's to interact with. The game was essentially 0-consequence real life; Everything could be interacted with, and it would change somewhat as you would expect. If you "died", you could respawn or chillax for a bit. The game kept track of your lives, score, and modified each by each region as needed, so it was unfair that I found that diamond (putting me ~4600 points over the top unreal player), but that's why it was there. Exploring was always a reward, but it wasn't always immediately obvious HOW you would be rewarded. Fights were as realistic as the zone employed; it could be RL fighting (as in medieval world) or game fighting (unreal world) or even turn based MMO style. Everyone that was local lan was playing in the same server, if we'd have cooperated it coulda been amazing.
Then, before I could select a new world, our time was up. Shaking myself to consciousness, apparently me and Zach were the only two really affected by the system, so we had to sit in a waiting room for an extra 5 minutes while we recuperated. (the machine can raise your brain temperature; so this is somewhat dangerous to do, especially if you get into it) WE talked about what we did, Zach went up north and conquered an entire north pole civilization using necromancer powers; murdering stupid elves and christmasy things. Sounded like fun! After a while one of the employees came by and offered us jobs, because we were able to actually interface with the system and do things most people couldn't. We declined for the moment, and the dream ended because some noises coming from the living room woke me up.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, and this game was running at 240FPS, for 15 minutes, then how many words would I need to describe what I just lived through? (hint: 60*15*240*1000) Unfortunately, I'm not into wasting my time describing the emotional and graphical details of the dreams; You'll just have to know that whatever it was is more vivid and amazing than anything you're used too. You'd have to travel to world to even get close to experiencing these kinds of wonders. And trust me, as anyone who has "been there" knows; Pictures, movies and games can't even get close. Being there is really something else.
-Z
P.S. There was some cool fanservice in the game I didn't mention. ;)
Goathouse, me, and some of my other friends were at some drunk party, it seemed like we were in Canada and the bars were really slow, so it was about 5:30 am, and we drove to this gaming place that had been raved about (~2030, but we're still in our 20's). This huge gaming place has a large TeraHertz gaming server that linked you into the game with both mouse, keyboard, and a brain-link (looked like a plastic necklace) to allow the game to read your input before you actually make it. It didn't "put you in the game" but it was as close as is physically possible (you were still sitting down staring at a screen (4k screen))
Details:
I don't remember much about the party, except brien, john, jay, zach, kelly, adam, and probably everyone else were drinking a lot, I had too much already so I was on the floor (as usual); Somehow our drunken mobility decided we should play games since the only two chicks present were dumb. We had all heard about this new "synthesis" gaming experience, and somehow we all drove there.
When we got there, it was this big decorated building in white, with lots of industrial pipe decor, something right out of universal studios or something. After going though a regular queuing line (not many people there at 5:30am) we entered, and inside was a large guest room and a initiator room, full of computers (from a yet-nonexistent company; they were *nix though). Inside there were the two guys responsible for training people to use the machines, some regular fat unix looking dude (beard, scraggly, glasses) and a more normal dude. (no chicks in the VR business, save for Nisha, which was the goth-type; she worked in the server room. cute!) Well, we all took our places, and they talked to us about safety, how the device worked, and what the hardware was; meanwhile Supreme Commander 3 or something played on our monitors, showing us what possibility the games interface had. We were all given a necklace that laced over the shoulders like a seatbelt, so it could monitor our heart and safely disconnect us if things go too intense. There was also this V-shaped plastic thing that we wore on our necks, that connected to the VR interface fort (some sort of SATA looking connection). This device was responsible for reading our brain waves; and giving the game the appropriate data stream.
So, after getting lectured about problems we might encounter, and how to shut off the device (apparently, some people can't handle being "in" the game) we were moved into the next room once the previous group was finished.
The next room was all black, save for the soft glow of many high resolution computer monitors (4096x4096 displays, at least 25 inches wide). Each computer station was put behind a plexiglass wall, which contained the tera-server, running inside a bath of liquid nitrogen. the thing was the size of a van, and goth chick was constantly checking it every 15 minutes (in a suit :( ). The room had a tall ceiling too, was cool as well. Well, we each sat down, had 15 seconds to connect to the game then WHAM
IT started off as Unreal Tournament Tera-Edition; And we were all running around in a familiar setting blasting eachother with familiar weapons. It looked great, all the monitors were 3D, and the gameplay was fluid as always. However, what was happening was the brain reader was calibrating; by using a known experience, it can use that as the heuristic to generate the 'next best' scenario, and get used to your mind. Eventually, I no longer needed to use the keyboard or mouse to control my character, but had hands ready just in case. The unreal part was fine, but I ran away from the fight, wondering just what kind of virtual world this was. Apparently, just around the corner for unreal world was medieval world; a place full of Dragon-Age type shit; swords, magic, magicians, plague, dragons. All the generic stuff. The seamless transition was really something else, I just ran in there, fully armed in unreal tournament gear, and began running around the town shooting down guards. Eventually the game adapted, and it took away my gear (Unfair Use Justification Award) so I was now a peasant trying to stop a feudal government. Along the way, one of the AI people helped me out, and don't get me wrong, the AI was as real as another person in this game. IT could talk, interact, think and do all by itself. Gone are t he days of state based AI, now we have true organic processors that act alive (in a scarily realistic way). So, we and this other peasant start sneaking around, picking off guards using our knowledge of tactic; The AI player copied me and learned really fast; We eventually snuck our way into the armory, and found a treasure vault. Meanwhile, some other unreal players ran by outside, just continuing to fight eachother ignoring they were messing up medieval world. So, after stealing lots of money (the game felt real now, you know how that works when you get "into" a game) we tried to escape, but the guards were on us. WE could run faster though, and escaped outside and got to the top of the buildings quickly. The guards were real hesitant to follow us (soled shoes suck on mud roofs); so clambering onto the roofs we could see for miles; the entire kingdom of medieval world; the border of Jurassic world across a small river, the b order to jungle world up north, the "dead sea" (the admins told us the world did not wrap; it terminated and anyone going into or above the dead sea would be eaten ala Spore.) And the unreal world, with projectiles constantly going AWOL like fireworks. There was only one dragon in the air, but it didn't seem interested in what we were doing. So, after jumping around from roof to roof (the medieval buildings were 50+ ft tall, and made of very thick mud and concrete, supposedly a game design decision) I found that there was a giant golden cannon hidden atop a tower that we could get to, so after clambering around (I found a diamond, +5000 points) I aladdin'd my way down to the ground, still running from guards, pushing people away. The guards stopped taking interest in me, as my AI friend had got upitsnacthed by that flying lizard. They were busy, so I ran over to the cannon, and once I managed to get to the top via lots of hardcore mario platforming, I got a LEVEL SELECT. Which, I could preview any area I wanted, to see what there was in this unbelievably huge world to explore.
From memory, There was Unreal world, Jurassic World, Medieval World, Jungle World, Ice world, Air world (high skyscrapers & scaffolds), Slug world, Fusion world, Food world, Random world, Dark world, and quite a few others. Each world had it's own creatures, people, and AI's to interact with. The game was essentially 0-consequence real life; Everything could be interacted with, and it would change somewhat as you would expect. If you "died", you could respawn or chillax for a bit. The game kept track of your lives, score, and modified each by each region as needed, so it was unfair that I found that diamond (putting me ~4600 points over the top unreal player), but that's why it was there. Exploring was always a reward, but it wasn't always immediately obvious HOW you would be rewarded. Fights were as realistic as the zone employed; it could be RL fighting (as in medieval world) or game fighting (unreal world) or even turn based MMO style. Everyone that was local lan was playing in the same server, if we'd have cooperated it coulda been amazing.
Then, before I could select a new world, our time was up. Shaking myself to consciousness, apparently me and Zach were the only two really affected by the system, so we had to sit in a waiting room for an extra 5 minutes while we recuperated. (the machine can raise your brain temperature; so this is somewhat dangerous to do, especially if you get into it) WE talked about what we did, Zach went up north and conquered an entire north pole civilization using necromancer powers; murdering stupid elves and christmasy things. Sounded like fun! After a while one of the employees came by and offered us jobs, because we were able to actually interface with the system and do things most people couldn't. We declined for the moment, and the dream ended because some noises coming from the living room woke me up.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, and this game was running at 240FPS, for 15 minutes, then how many words would I need to describe what I just lived through? (hint: 60*15*240*1000) Unfortunately, I'm not into wasting my time describing the emotional and graphical details of the dreams; You'll just have to know that whatever it was is more vivid and amazing than anything you're used too. You'd have to travel to world to even get close to experiencing these kinds of wonders. And trust me, as anyone who has "been there" knows; Pictures, movies and games can't even get close. Being there is really something else.
-Z
P.S. There was some cool fanservice in the game I didn't mention. ;)
2010-01-31
Dream; Final Fantasty 6 - 2
Summary:
A high res remix of FF6 with a improved battle system, extended more in depth plot, and a lot of additional new features.
Details:
So, I put in my game blu-ray disc, to see what all the buzz was about with this final fantasy 3/6 TWO controversy; Having enjoyed the hell out of the first FF6, I was really skeptical about the remix. To my surprise, it both exceeded my expectations and blew my mind with awesomeness.
A lot of it is really fuzzy in memory, but Kevka was a lot mroe seriously evil in this one, and the plot was changed to match up with the more recent final fantasy's; The idea of 'magic' being used to dominate and ultimately destroy the world was still there, and espers were still there, but holy shit they are scary as hell in high res. Also, the espers are a lot more interactive, not merely quest items; They do actually converse, follow you around and make suggestions depending on how you treat them. Naturally once you kill an esper, it only exists as a spirit, so they cannot do anything until you summon them, which always costs 1 HP + some amount of MP. The battle system was vastly improved, implementing a mixture of both real time fighting and strategic turn based trickery; Also all done in glorious 3D. You had the option to command classically, where actions were mere dice rolls, or you could switch to Star Ocean mode, and stop-time fight all at once, OR you could keep the 'Neo' mode, where it was classical turn based, but each action had *you* play it out, so if you said 'Sabin -> Pummel' then you have to run in with Sabin, and mash buttons or do some sort of mini-game. Sometimes, basic attacks are just running and aiming correctly; which means doing so gives you far more options to have critical attacks, since WHERE you hit an enemy determines that, but only in Neo mode (IE using a sword against the neck = critical hit)
The graphics were photo-realistic photon ray traced HDR Spherical Harmonics ambient occlusion self shadowing ect. goodness. It was amazingly pretty to look at, all of the objects had absurd levels of detail, when you put it in star ocean mode and paused, you could move around the battlefield to look at all the detail of the characters and monsters, seeing every little scar, emotion, item, scrap of clothing, was crazy! Kinda like the first time you discovered link wore earrings in Ocarina of Time.
So, now we have a excellent combat system, an amazing visual presentation, and the traditional orchestral music but this time with less music; Most of the game takes place in an 'ambient' environment, only when you do something that requires a beat, or a induced emotion is there a musical score. This adds greatly to the emotional and immersive impact of the game; For example, walking through a town sounds like a town, but stopping at a shop to do mundane purchasing pops up the lively 'shop' music, and it all blended acoustically together, forming a seamless transition. Lots of the environment was interactive, pots, crates, bushes could be examined or broken; Obviously sometimes with consequences; Most of the time you wouldn't really find anything either; Exploring was well emphasized, there were still invisible walls, but they were there only to help you, and eventually dissapear if you push on them long enough. Though, trying to walk off a cliff, your character stops youl, not a wall. They don't want to jump in lava, spikes, acid, death.
The controls meshed well with a PS3 remote. Was very intuitive for an RPG.
So the plot! Because that's what was so awesome about FF6, is how you got drawn into the world by the story. This is where I'll likely make mistakes; because I didn;t even get past the first part of the game, since I only played it for about 6 hours.
I remember being 'Setzer' in a team with Edgar, Cloud (wtF? musta been gau), Celes, Terra, and Relm (who is an adult this time around, if I could draw you a picture of her she'd get instant cult fame), and we were walking around some town, stocking up before attempting to infiltrated on of the larger magitek ships that had been docked in port. The world was torn, there were multiple powers fighting for supreme control of the magitek and espers, and there was of course the resistance that aimed to stop them from killing the planet/espers. That's what you do, and the first part was just going from town to town, fighting monsters (another note, monsters are very dynamic in Neo mode; They have a lot of specialized attacks and depending on the monster, you can indirectly tame/lure them depending. IE, I would have Setzer try and bait them with food, then Cloud critical them when they got close. Earning me a 'Evil' ranking most of the time, but hey, times are tough. I'm sure the game will cause that to backfire on me later, for being evil to so many of a specific enemy I'll probably run into a much larger one that kicks my ass)
So, eventually, after a lot of fighting and killing magitek guards, we found a drawbridge, and had to solve a physics puzzle with an open ended solution. WE srewed it up, so we had to find a boat and cross the moat; didn;t work, we ended up swimming into the sewer pipes of the ship (if it HAD worked, we would have saved a lot of time & got some cool items)
So now we're in the bowels of this really large, iron rusty colored monster, it was insanely large, larger than the superbowl; it had lots of smoothed out high tech looking cooridors, and the platforms above this sluice, which Terra figured out was 'cooling' their magitek reactor, which contained an esper, we eventually got cloud to ninja us a guard so we could take their weapons; The room we were in was about 35 ft tall, the bottom half had a hemispherical cutout that was full of hte sluice we were hiding in, and was really dark. The top half had cutout platforms nad rooms, lots of scientists in white walking around, and guards with white and red symbols. They looked a lot like the ones from FF6, mind you. so we split up, and each took some positions to try and get intel on where the reactor was. Most of the girls took labcoats and became 'scientists' and the guys took on casual appearances (there was a entire city in this ship, after all.) After some espionage, we got really unlucky, and Kevka showed up. Kevka, in this stage of the game, looked a LOT like sephiroth, but with a much crazier grin all the time, and was tall, but did not yet reach feather in hat stage. He was becoming mad with power, but hadn't completely lost it. Well, Kevka has a few bodyguards, and was actually being pretty personable, hitting people he didn't know on the shoulder, really hard and laughing about 'How's the Day' or something like that, knocking them down and just laughing about it. Was quite fitting. Apparently, Cloud got pissed off and confronted him...
So suddenly, boss mode happened.
Boss mode is really different; If you confront a boss OUT of character, this special mode comes up, where time is slowed down a lot, and you get all these new special gauges; Because if you were to actually defeat kevka at this point, it would probably mess up the game, the game makes sure to give you a damn good challenge. When a boss fight occurs, your teammates can suddenly join the 'battle sphere' which is a large area surrounding the boss. Joining it gives you your command queue;
Once the fight starts, everyting happens in REAL time, but slowed down about 10 times; so you can see everyone attacking at once; thinking quickly is the only way to survive. Kefva had a revolver like the joker, and luckily missed cloud but killed two people in the immediate area (battles don't "transport" you somewhere else, you exist in the world at all times, so your fights can fuck up the world!) cloud tried to hit him but got stabbed in the gut (Kevka had armor on under his white suit) so he backed off; Kevka ended the fight by default, so we couldn;t fight him. Apparently, he had no idea who we were, and was actually delighted we tried to kill him. Something about "I haven't seen such fire in a long time! Cecil, get this man to the recuiting station!" And just continue on, laughing manically after hitting shocked cloud on the shoulder, knocking him down. Kevka's bodyguards never entered the fight, indicating they knew you were no match.
There is so much detail in this dream, but I can't really remember all of it. Point is, if it was written out correctly, I sure hope that someone makes a RPG like it. Woudl be awesome.
-Z
A high res remix of FF6 with a improved battle system, extended more in depth plot, and a lot of additional new features.
Details:
So, I put in my game blu-ray disc, to see what all the buzz was about with this final fantasy 3/6 TWO controversy; Having enjoyed the hell out of the first FF6, I was really skeptical about the remix. To my surprise, it both exceeded my expectations and blew my mind with awesomeness.
A lot of it is really fuzzy in memory, but Kevka was a lot mroe seriously evil in this one, and the plot was changed to match up with the more recent final fantasy's; The idea of 'magic' being used to dominate and ultimately destroy the world was still there, and espers were still there, but holy shit they are scary as hell in high res. Also, the espers are a lot more interactive, not merely quest items; They do actually converse, follow you around and make suggestions depending on how you treat them. Naturally once you kill an esper, it only exists as a spirit, so they cannot do anything until you summon them, which always costs 1 HP + some amount of MP. The battle system was vastly improved, implementing a mixture of both real time fighting and strategic turn based trickery; Also all done in glorious 3D. You had the option to command classically, where actions were mere dice rolls, or you could switch to Star Ocean mode, and stop-time fight all at once, OR you could keep the 'Neo' mode, where it was classical turn based, but each action had *you* play it out, so if you said 'Sabin -> Pummel' then you have to run in with Sabin, and mash buttons or do some sort of mini-game. Sometimes, basic attacks are just running and aiming correctly; which means doing so gives you far more options to have critical attacks, since WHERE you hit an enemy determines that, but only in Neo mode (IE using a sword against the neck = critical hit)
The graphics were photo-realistic photon ray traced HDR Spherical Harmonics ambient occlusion self shadowing ect. goodness. It was amazingly pretty to look at, all of the objects had absurd levels of detail, when you put it in star ocean mode and paused, you could move around the battlefield to look at all the detail of the characters and monsters, seeing every little scar, emotion, item, scrap of clothing, was crazy! Kinda like the first time you discovered link wore earrings in Ocarina of Time.
So, now we have a excellent combat system, an amazing visual presentation, and the traditional orchestral music but this time with less music; Most of the game takes place in an 'ambient' environment, only when you do something that requires a beat, or a induced emotion is there a musical score. This adds greatly to the emotional and immersive impact of the game; For example, walking through a town sounds like a town, but stopping at a shop to do mundane purchasing pops up the lively 'shop' music, and it all blended acoustically together, forming a seamless transition. Lots of the environment was interactive, pots, crates, bushes could be examined or broken; Obviously sometimes with consequences; Most of the time you wouldn't really find anything either; Exploring was well emphasized, there were still invisible walls, but they were there only to help you, and eventually dissapear if you push on them long enough. Though, trying to walk off a cliff, your character stops youl, not a wall. They don't want to jump in lava, spikes, acid, death.
The controls meshed well with a PS3 remote. Was very intuitive for an RPG.
So the plot! Because that's what was so awesome about FF6, is how you got drawn into the world by the story. This is where I'll likely make mistakes; because I didn;t even get past the first part of the game, since I only played it for about 6 hours.
I remember being 'Setzer' in a team with Edgar, Cloud (wtF? musta been gau), Celes, Terra, and Relm (who is an adult this time around, if I could draw you a picture of her she'd get instant cult fame), and we were walking around some town, stocking up before attempting to infiltrated on of the larger magitek ships that had been docked in port. The world was torn, there were multiple powers fighting for supreme control of the magitek and espers, and there was of course the resistance that aimed to stop them from killing the planet/espers. That's what you do, and the first part was just going from town to town, fighting monsters (another note, monsters are very dynamic in Neo mode; They have a lot of specialized attacks and depending on the monster, you can indirectly tame/lure them depending. IE, I would have Setzer try and bait them with food, then Cloud critical them when they got close. Earning me a 'Evil' ranking most of the time, but hey, times are tough. I'm sure the game will cause that to backfire on me later, for being evil to so many of a specific enemy I'll probably run into a much larger one that kicks my ass)
So, eventually, after a lot of fighting and killing magitek guards, we found a drawbridge, and had to solve a physics puzzle with an open ended solution. WE srewed it up, so we had to find a boat and cross the moat; didn;t work, we ended up swimming into the sewer pipes of the ship (if it HAD worked, we would have saved a lot of time & got some cool items)
So now we're in the bowels of this really large, iron rusty colored monster, it was insanely large, larger than the superbowl; it had lots of smoothed out high tech looking cooridors, and the platforms above this sluice, which Terra figured out was 'cooling' their magitek reactor, which contained an esper, we eventually got cloud to ninja us a guard so we could take their weapons; The room we were in was about 35 ft tall, the bottom half had a hemispherical cutout that was full of hte sluice we were hiding in, and was really dark. The top half had cutout platforms nad rooms, lots of scientists in white walking around, and guards with white and red symbols. They looked a lot like the ones from FF6, mind you. so we split up, and each took some positions to try and get intel on where the reactor was. Most of the girls took labcoats and became 'scientists' and the guys took on casual appearances (there was a entire city in this ship, after all.) After some espionage, we got really unlucky, and Kevka showed up. Kevka, in this stage of the game, looked a LOT like sephiroth, but with a much crazier grin all the time, and was tall, but did not yet reach feather in hat stage. He was becoming mad with power, but hadn't completely lost it. Well, Kevka has a few bodyguards, and was actually being pretty personable, hitting people he didn't know on the shoulder, really hard and laughing about 'How's the Day' or something like that, knocking them down and just laughing about it. Was quite fitting. Apparently, Cloud got pissed off and confronted him...
So suddenly, boss mode happened.
Boss mode is really different; If you confront a boss OUT of character, this special mode comes up, where time is slowed down a lot, and you get all these new special gauges; Because if you were to actually defeat kevka at this point, it would probably mess up the game, the game makes sure to give you a damn good challenge. When a boss fight occurs, your teammates can suddenly join the 'battle sphere' which is a large area surrounding the boss. Joining it gives you your command queue;
Once the fight starts, everyting happens in REAL time, but slowed down about 10 times; so you can see everyone attacking at once; thinking quickly is the only way to survive. Kefva had a revolver like the joker, and luckily missed cloud but killed two people in the immediate area (battles don't "transport" you somewhere else, you exist in the world at all times, so your fights can fuck up the world!) cloud tried to hit him but got stabbed in the gut (Kevka had armor on under his white suit) so he backed off; Kevka ended the fight by default, so we couldn;t fight him. Apparently, he had no idea who we were, and was actually delighted we tried to kill him. Something about "I haven't seen such fire in a long time! Cecil, get this man to the recuiting station!" And just continue on, laughing manically after hitting shocked cloud on the shoulder, knocking him down. Kevka's bodyguards never entered the fight, indicating they knew you were no match.
There is so much detail in this dream, but I can't really remember all of it. Point is, if it was written out correctly, I sure hope that someone makes a RPG like it. Woudl be awesome.
-Z
2010-01-29
Picking, Mouse Projections, Screen to Ray
The Problem:
When the user clicks on the 2D screen, how do we know in 3D coordinates where they actually clicked, so we can select the object they clicked on?
The Solution:
Obviously a simple geometric / linear algebra problem. It is commonly done by querying the graphics card for the projection, modelview, and viewport. I despise asking the card for anything, as it should be a one way pipe. (minus CUDA, which is still new).
Our special case is, if we know how we constructed the projection matrix, we can easily invert the process to convert a screen ray into world coordinates. Then we can make those world coordinates relative to our "camera" matrix, and you can then perform a ray to scene collision detection;
This is also called "picking", "selection", and has a variety of other names. I highly reccomend never using any method but your own geometric methods, since you can't rely on this type of functionality to be consistent, without ensuring your own code is.
In layman terms, "You can click things in 3D" / "What you see is what you get"
The orange dot is the actual 3D position of the Ray -> AABB intersection
(A Ray is defined by a point and a direction, a AABB is a axis aligned bounding box, so it has a minimum position and a maximum position, or a center and a half-size for each axis)
Here's some code snippet:
Works beautifully! Onward with my megaman project.
-Z
When the user clicks on the 2D screen, how do we know in 3D coordinates where they actually clicked, so we can select the object they clicked on?
The Solution:
Obviously a simple geometric / linear algebra problem. It is commonly done by querying the graphics card for the projection, modelview, and viewport. I despise asking the card for anything, as it should be a one way pipe. (minus CUDA, which is still new).
Our special case is, if we know how we constructed the projection matrix, we can easily invert the process to convert a screen ray into world coordinates. Then we can make those world coordinates relative to our "camera" matrix, and you can then perform a ray to scene collision detection;
This is also called "picking", "selection", and has a variety of other names. I highly reccomend never using any method but your own geometric methods, since you can't rely on this type of functionality to be consistent, without ensuring your own code is.
In layman terms, "You can click things in 3D" / "What you see is what you get"
The orange dot is the actual 3D position of the Ray -> AABB intersection
(A Ray is defined by a point and a direction, a AABB is a axis aligned bounding box, so it has a minimum position and a maximum position, or a center and a half-size for each axis)
Here's some code snippet:
From reading that code, you'll notice the projection matrix is defined by:class matrix
{
public:
//+X = left, +Y = up, +Z = forward
float Xx, Xy, Xz, Xw; //Order from spec; Colum major 0..16. Have to transpose all the mathematics (internally)
float Yx, Yy, Yz, Yw;
float Zx, Zy, Zz, Zw;
float x, y, z, w;
...
void mingl::matrix::frustum_get_ray( int umouse_x, int umouse_y, int window_w, int window_h, float distnear, float distfar, float fovangle, float & Rx, float & Ry, float & Rz, float & Rdx, float & Rdy, float & Rdz )
{
float scrn_x = (float)(2*umouse_x - window_w) / ((float)window_w);
float scrn_y = -(float)(2*umouse_y - window_h) / ((float)window_h);
float td_dx, td_dy;
float td_tan = tan( fovangle * (M_PI/360.0f) );
if( window_w > window_h ){
td_dx = td_tan * scrn_x * ((float)window_w/(float)window_h);
td_dy = td_tan * scrn_y;
}else{
td_dx = td_tan * scrn_x;
td_dy = td_tan * scrn_y * ((float)window_h/(float)window_w);
}
//Generate points on the projection viewport
float p1[3] = { td_dx*distnear, td_dy*distnear, distnear };
float p2[3] = { td_dx*distfar, td_dy*distfar, distfar };
float dv[3] = { (p2[0] - p1[0]), (p2[1] - p1[1]), (p2[2] - p1[2]) };
//Note this is a specialized "To Global" operation (because of the inversion on axes)
//Ray does not start from center of camera.
Rx = x - Zx * p1[2] + Xx * p1[0] + Yx * p1[1];
Ry = y - Zy * p1[2] + Xy * p1[0] + Yy * p1[1];
Rz = z - Zz * p1[2] + Xz * p1[0] + Yz * p1[1];
//note the conversion.
Rdx = -Zx * dv[2] + Xx * dv[0] + Yx * dv[1];
Rdy = -Zy * dv[2] + Xy * dv[0] + Yy * dv[1];
Rdz = -Zz * dv[2] + Xz * dv[0] + Yz * dv[1];
}
//3D projection matrix via symmetrical frustum; the most common projection.
float fov = 60.0;
float aspect = 1.0;
float unear = 0.125;
float ufar = 1024.0;
float top = tan(fov*0.00872664625997f) * unear; //0.00872665f = pi / 360 = (pi / 180) * 0.5
if( (window_h > 0) && (window_w > 0) ){
if( window_w > window_h ){
aspect = float(window_w)/float(window_h);
projection.frustum( aspect * -top, aspect * top, -top, top, unear, ufar );
}else{
aspect = float(window_h)/float(window_w);
projection.frustum( -top, top, aspect * -top,aspect * top, unear, ufar );
}
}
void mingl::matrix::frustum( float ul, float ur, float ub, float ut, float un, float uf )
{
float dx = (ur-ul);
float dy = (ut-ub);
float dz = (uf-un);
dx = (dx <= 0) ? 1.0 : dx;
dy = (dy <= 0) ? 1.0 : dy;
dz = (dz <= 0) ? 1.0 : dz;
identity();
Xx = (2.0*un)/dx;
Yy = (2.0*un)/dy;
Xz = (ur + ul)/dx;
Yz = (ut + ub)/dy;
Zz = -(uf + un)/dz;
Zw = -1.0;
z = -(2.0*uf*un)/dz;
w = 0;
Works beautifully! Onward with my megaman project.
-Z
2010-01-24
Dream; Apparently, photon rendering is a big thing
Summary:
reed, scott, amanda and I go on a failed tulsa telescope trip; then reed and I play a VR cube-like game.
Details:
I'm trying to remember the events leading up to the start of the 'game', there was something about a really long trip to tulsa, and scott, reed, amanda and I broke down so squeeky came by and had to rescue us, with nathan, turned out we had to get a rental car or something and who knows what else. I think we were going on a camping/telescoping trip, but I really don't remember as there was this phase shift,
Suddenly, it was virtual reality videogame time, and after watching this boring plot introduction to these two biologists, both of which were studying some fossils up in the mountains, got killed by natural enemies like venomous spiders and snakes; It was odd, as if the grounds were possessed.
Suddenly, it fast forwards, and this place as near this ancient ruins site that looked like a Cube level, I began running around, pickup up weapons in the arena; Little chuck came by and asked me some stupid question, I ignored it and showed him how awesome the graphics were. After that, the gameplay started, and I was waiting for someone else to join. Apparently though, there was a pterodactyl as an enemy, and fucking hell it was invincible. So I'm running around, this super skill avian like monster, at least 12 ft wingspan, is trying to hit my collision box and transfer away 25% of my health; I pick up this regular pistol, an AK-47 like weapon, my M-16 (favorite), futuristic purple plasma belcher, and a green flux rifle, all of which had multiple secondary modes, and looked awesome like they SHOULD be doing some damage. Nothin, the damn bird was invincible. So now I'm running around avoiding getting pecked to death, trying to shut doors behind me, but the goddamn thing could open them with it's face; so it was able to follow me everywhere, there was no escape. Randomly, Nemesis shows up with a rocket launcher and is now also trying to kill me. Luckily, Reed logged in and we both started trying to kill nemesis, but the stupid dinosaur was continuing to attack me only; who knows why. Nemesis could run like nobody's business, so we were having trouble getting away from him; The arena was a very large place, with ruined columns jutting out all over the floor, there were 2 main corridors you could go down anbd a 5 - level rope bridge with huts area in the middle of this Colosseum like ring; The other corridors led to many separate and unique rooms, and a grand hall; the separate rooms usually had a theme, like trophy room, bath room, study, torture chamber, ect... But we ended up climbing our way to the top of the huts since nemesis couldn't jump, continuing to get hit by that stupid pterodactyl, and eventually make it to the top hut with a large button panel. I hold the door shut, the damn dino bird was really strong, it tris to swipe my feet or grab my ankles, since it was able to hold the door partially open, easy to dodge b ut I thought twas was an unusual detail for an enemy that basically just runs into you; maybe there were conditional attacks that we'd really need to avoid?
Either way, there was a puzzle, I tell reed to solve it, he does, but in a way the designers didn't intend, so a giant swarm of anti-dermestic beetles comes from nowhere, and we start running and shooting at them, nemesis shoots them all with a rocket, and we continue playing the game.
reed, scott, amanda and I go on a failed tulsa telescope trip; then reed and I play a VR cube-like game.
Details:
I'm trying to remember the events leading up to the start of the 'game', there was something about a really long trip to tulsa, and scott, reed, amanda and I broke down so squeeky came by and had to rescue us, with nathan, turned out we had to get a rental car or something and who knows what else. I think we were going on a camping/telescoping trip, but I really don't remember as there was this phase shift,
Suddenly, it was virtual reality videogame time, and after watching this boring plot introduction to these two biologists, both of which were studying some fossils up in the mountains, got killed by natural enemies like venomous spiders and snakes; It was odd, as if the grounds were possessed.
Suddenly, it fast forwards, and this place as near this ancient ruins site that looked like a Cube level, I began running around, pickup up weapons in the arena; Little chuck came by and asked me some stupid question, I ignored it and showed him how awesome the graphics were. After that, the gameplay started, and I was waiting for someone else to join. Apparently though, there was a pterodactyl as an enemy, and fucking hell it was invincible. So I'm running around, this super skill avian like monster, at least 12 ft wingspan, is trying to hit my collision box and transfer away 25% of my health; I pick up this regular pistol, an AK-47 like weapon, my M-16 (favorite), futuristic purple plasma belcher, and a green flux rifle, all of which had multiple secondary modes, and looked awesome like they SHOULD be doing some damage. Nothin, the damn bird was invincible. So now I'm running around avoiding getting pecked to death, trying to shut doors behind me, but the goddamn thing could open them with it's face; so it was able to follow me everywhere, there was no escape. Randomly, Nemesis shows up with a rocket launcher and is now also trying to kill me. Luckily, Reed logged in and we both started trying to kill nemesis, but the stupid dinosaur was continuing to attack me only; who knows why. Nemesis could run like nobody's business, so we were having trouble getting away from him; The arena was a very large place, with ruined columns jutting out all over the floor, there were 2 main corridors you could go down anbd a 5 - level rope bridge with huts area in the middle of this Colosseum like ring; The other corridors led to many separate and unique rooms, and a grand hall; the separate rooms usually had a theme, like trophy room, bath room, study, torture chamber, ect... But we ended up climbing our way to the top of the huts since nemesis couldn't jump, continuing to get hit by that stupid pterodactyl, and eventually make it to the top hut with a large button panel. I hold the door shut, the damn dino bird was really strong, it tris to swipe my feet or grab my ankles, since it was able to hold the door partially open, easy to dodge b ut I thought twas was an unusual detail for an enemy that basically just runs into you; maybe there were conditional attacks that we'd really need to avoid?
Either way, there was a puzzle, I tell reed to solve it, he does, but in a way the designers didn't intend, so a giant swarm of anti-dermestic beetles comes from nowhere, and we start running and shooting at them, nemesis shoots them all with a rocket, and we continue playing the game.
2010-01-20
Dream - Fanservice; Slightly disturbing
As stated, this is somewhat a fanservice dream. Don't read if you don't like reading disturbing things.
Summary:
Something about folks visiting someone's friend because their friend's just got killed in some accident, or maybe from cancer. So we visit this freaks house, nice house, then go get some groceries before going home and I find a dreamcast and play this crazy vore fanservice game where you were some chick that could turn into a dolphin.
Details:
I remember some of the dream, not the events leading up to visiting this random guy. Apparently, some friend of my parents had kicked it, don't really know how they died, but they had no surviving relatives, just a friend that had been taking care of them intermittently, so they decided to pay a visit to him to get the scoop. This dude lived on the coastline, somewhere further east, was a beautiful 4 acre lot on the water, with it's own jeti and pier, boatdock, multi-part house (had a main home, and a side home for tools/games like Bill's 'Mancave') and a very well kept lawn. This guy was single though, which was odd. Either way, I'm bored, the dude doesn't seem that interesting, and he actually had a friend over, which I thought was strange, since he knew we were coming over, but I guess the friend was just leaving. Ironically, I overheard some of their conversation, and some words came up about eka's and such, and I wondered who this guy really was.
So, we putz around his house, he shows us all the cool shit he had, like the exercise room with TV and his tool filled garage with a classic car, his two cats, blah blah blah. He asked me some question, I can't remember what it was, but it was indirectly asking if I was a member of eka's too, so I responded "I bet Imaginary Z would know." and then we left.
Was really weird, and boring. No cool events, but the house was pretty awesome.
Second part, we're driving home, it's raining a lot, so we stop in at a place that is topologically identical to my Homeland in mustang, so the folks go in and start shopping, me and sis hang out in the front, where they had some crazy arcade games. I find this one, I make fun of it, because it was something like a mermaid/transformation game thing, the demo reel looked like Ecco from the dreamcast. So, I give it a shot, it played fairly well, like a mario 64 type game, there wasn't really anything slowing down the gameplay, you could run around as some chick, use a energy whip to kill shit like Zero suit samus does in brawl, and, if you jumped in the water, you could turn into a dolphin and fly around. The dolphin form initially could not shoot, and the game did not prevent you from going into 'difficult' areas, so, that's the first thing I did. Not too surprisingly, there were these lightly lavender/grey colored plesiousaur/dragon monsters slowly moving around, and since you didn't have any weapon equipped, speed-ramming them did nothing, I tried it a few times, but apparently, if you get too close to their neck/head kinematic range (kinematic range is a probabilistic region defined by the "energy" required to stretch a chain of bones to that position; Much like the 'rope around a silo' problem) you get treated to a funny little cinema scene of the thing swallowing your dolphin with ease. Though, the designers, being sick fucks apparently, let you mash buttons to try and wriggle enough to make it spit you out; So it wasn't really insta-death, though you were given the option to 'suicide' or attempt escape. I thought that was rather bizarre, so I experimented with it; It turned out a glitch allowed you to change back into human form while being eaten, but due to the way the game was programmed, your dolphin form would still exist, so your human form just pops into existence next to your assailent, so you can wail on it's ass while it eats your old form. If you happen to rescue the old form, your human form dissapears, and you're a dolphin again. Was quite strange, and even MORE weirdly, if you let the sea dragon finish off your dolphin, your human form would NOT disappear, but you would switch control back to the swallowed dolphin, from which you could struggle indefinitely, with accompanying highly detail animation (the "object under a silk cloth" type animation) until you got bored of the screen telling you to restart. But when you DID restart, you would start from where you left off the human form, in a way, you had a glitchy emergent behavior trick; Maybe this was intentional, I don't know.
The environment of the game was very blue and icy looking in color, the waters were dark blue and deep, there were very few creatures or plants or things in it, just a couple of those sea dragons and some glowing rocks at the bottom, maybe 500+ ft deep. The point was, this was obviously subconscious fanservice; I'm not complaining but I sure wish I had those models. They looked oddly similar to one of the models I'm currently working on though...
Summary:
Something about folks visiting someone's friend because their friend's just got killed in some accident, or maybe from cancer. So we visit this freaks house, nice house, then go get some groceries before going home and I find a dreamcast and play this crazy vore fanservice game where you were some chick that could turn into a dolphin.
Details:
I remember some of the dream, not the events leading up to visiting this random guy. Apparently, some friend of my parents had kicked it, don't really know how they died, but they had no surviving relatives, just a friend that had been taking care of them intermittently, so they decided to pay a visit to him to get the scoop. This dude lived on the coastline, somewhere further east, was a beautiful 4 acre lot on the water, with it's own jeti and pier, boatdock, multi-part house (had a main home, and a side home for tools/games like Bill's 'Mancave') and a very well kept lawn. This guy was single though, which was odd. Either way, I'm bored, the dude doesn't seem that interesting, and he actually had a friend over, which I thought was strange, since he knew we were coming over, but I guess the friend was just leaving. Ironically, I overheard some of their conversation, and some words came up about eka's and such, and I wondered who this guy really was.
So, we putz around his house, he shows us all the cool shit he had, like the exercise room with TV and his tool filled garage with a classic car, his two cats, blah blah blah. He asked me some question, I can't remember what it was, but it was indirectly asking if I was a member of eka's too, so I responded "I bet Imaginary Z would know." and then we left.
Was really weird, and boring. No cool events, but the house was pretty awesome.
Second part, we're driving home, it's raining a lot, so we stop in at a place that is topologically identical to my Homeland in mustang, so the folks go in and start shopping, me and sis hang out in the front, where they had some crazy arcade games. I find this one, I make fun of it, because it was something like a mermaid/transformation game thing, the demo reel looked like Ecco from the dreamcast. So, I give it a shot, it played fairly well, like a mario 64 type game, there wasn't really anything slowing down the gameplay, you could run around as some chick, use a energy whip to kill shit like Zero suit samus does in brawl, and, if you jumped in the water, you could turn into a dolphin and fly around. The dolphin form initially could not shoot, and the game did not prevent you from going into 'difficult' areas, so, that's the first thing I did. Not too surprisingly, there were these lightly lavender/grey colored plesiousaur/dragon monsters slowly moving around, and since you didn't have any weapon equipped, speed-ramming them did nothing, I tried it a few times, but apparently, if you get too close to their neck/head kinematic range (kinematic range is a probabilistic region defined by the "energy" required to stretch a chain of bones to that position; Much like the 'rope around a silo' problem) you get treated to a funny little cinema scene of the thing swallowing your dolphin with ease. Though, the designers, being sick fucks apparently, let you mash buttons to try and wriggle enough to make it spit you out; So it wasn't really insta-death, though you were given the option to 'suicide' or attempt escape. I thought that was rather bizarre, so I experimented with it; It turned out a glitch allowed you to change back into human form while being eaten, but due to the way the game was programmed, your dolphin form would still exist, so your human form just pops into existence next to your assailent, so you can wail on it's ass while it eats your old form. If you happen to rescue the old form, your human form dissapears, and you're a dolphin again. Was quite strange, and even MORE weirdly, if you let the sea dragon finish off your dolphin, your human form would NOT disappear, but you would switch control back to the swallowed dolphin, from which you could struggle indefinitely, with accompanying highly detail animation (the "object under a silk cloth" type animation) until you got bored of the screen telling you to restart. But when you DID restart, you would start from where you left off the human form, in a way, you had a glitchy emergent behavior trick; Maybe this was intentional, I don't know.
The environment of the game was very blue and icy looking in color, the waters were dark blue and deep, there were very few creatures or plants or things in it, just a couple of those sea dragons and some glowing rocks at the bottom, maybe 500+ ft deep. The point was, this was obviously subconscious fanservice; I'm not complaining but I sure wish I had those models. They looked oddly similar to one of the models I'm currently working on though...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)