So Cash Industries

Date: September 29, YC 111
Location: Piekura VIII, Moon 11, State War Academy School, Lonetrek Region
ID: Captain Gladis Neelsen

So it’s finally happened. I’m officially a capsuleer. After years of arduous work in the Royal Institute, the first step towards realizing a lifelong dream is complete. As soon as I had graduated, I immediately received a message from a very dear friend of mine. It was a man I had known since childhood, and we had gone our own ways when he began his studies at the School of Applied Knowledge in Todaki. Before he and I parted company for the better part of two decades, I made one promise to him. I promised that I would eventually join him and roam among the stars with him. Following my departure from the Institute, this dream felt so close, yet so far. I still had to find him.

Many people reading this would simply label this another drama in which two lovers are separated for ages, only to reunite after trial by fire, and live happily ever after. I wouldn’t exactly call him a lover; in fact, what love I do have for him is strictly platonic (and non-reproductive intercourse is an extreme taboo in Amarr culture). Instead, he was a man who had standards.  He was a man of the world, and had no qualms in stating things how they were. He was a realist, a type of person every society could do with having more of.

He never roamed far from Caldari space, as too many of the amenities vital to a capsuleer were within arm’s reach. He had no roots in Amarr space. Constant work for the Caldari State had warranted a kill-on-sight order in Gallente space. Minmatar space was simply too remote for him. Caldari space had it all. As such, it’s the most densely-populated area in all of New Eden. He told me he operated out of some fringe system in the Lonetrek region. It was adjacent to low-security space, had plenty of industrial and mining opportunities, and it wasn’t far from the massive trading hub of Jita. It seemed like the perfect haven.

In his mails to me following my graduation, he recounted the events he and his corporation (known as “So Cash Industries”) had experienced during their time in Piekura. From harmless antics to intense wartime action, it seems like he and his bunch of chums know how to have fun, a stark comparison to most corporations whose sole interest lies in wringing as much ISK as they can out of the markets of New Eden. One particular story he recollected in great detail was that of their first war with another corporation. The war notification had appeared without so much as a single word spoken between his CEO and the enemy’s. The corporation in question, called “Inglorious Basterds,” touted themselves as an honorable group who never fled from a fight, and took every loss in stride, calling it a learning experience. He continued by saying that nothing could be further from the truth. This group insisted on fighting dirty, fleeing from a fight whenever possible, and defaming him and his group with slanderous talk. Eventually, a friend with some connections pulled some strings, and gave the Basterds a new force to worry about. Needless to say, the war was retraced, and the corporation disbanded within a month. However, they did not withdraw without enduring some losses, including the loss of a Fleet Issue Tempest when the pilot, in desperation, docked the severely-damaged vessel into a station lacking repair facilities. Since safety regulations forbid the deployment of structurally-damaged ships, the pilot had no choice but to dispose of the half-billion ISK vessel. Truly, it was a red letter day for So Cash.

Blogging this from my phone, I’m sitting outside the Scout Bar in San Antonio in anticipation of the Kamelot concert. The air is filled with epic awesomeness.

As usual, you can expect my thoughts and some pictures within the next few days.

That NEVER happens. EVER. Not with his wicked bandwidth.

Anyway, on to the REAL topic of this blog post.

For a long time, I was really looking forward to Dead Space, and after playing it all the way through, I was by and large very impressed.

Here’s the premise: It’s several hundred years in the future. Earth has expended most of its natural resources, so the humans have built massive starships, called “planetcrackers,” which essentially break planets open and pull huge chunks of rock out, harvesting the minerals within.

Anyway, boring part over. You take the role of Isaac Clarke, an engineer who has been tasked to board the USG Ishimura (one of the aforementioned planetcrackers). The Ishimura has, for whatever reason, suffered a communications blackout. Clarke’s team of engineers is to board and perform the necessary maintenance. However, once you board the Ishimura, it’s evident that something has gone horribly wrong. There are no living crew members to be found, and there is a substantial amount of gore everywhere. Something killed the crew.

Turns out, some crazy alien creatures have boarded the ship, called “necromorphs.” Once they kill the crew, they mutate them into more of their own. Killing them isn’t as easy as shooting at them until they die. Presumably, their body functions are decentralized, and the game puts a lot of emphasis on a tactic called “strategic dismemberment.” Most of your weapons will help you enact this tactic to the fullest. The interesting thing is the aliens will adapt to changes in their physique (being dismembered). If you cut off their legs, they’ll start crawling after you. Sometimes if you slice them clean in half, you’ll have not one, but TWO enemies to worry about.

Unlike most shooters, where you take the role of some big buff soldier or something, Isaac is an engineer. Therefore, most of his weapons are improvised from repair or mining tools, like welders, saws, and torches.

The game has no real HUD. Every bit of vital information you’ll need is projected via hologram on Isaac’s suit. Your health is shown by a glowing vertical stripe running down the back of your suit, and your current weapon’s ammo is only displayed via hologram when you’re actually aiming it. The lack of a HUD helps keep the player immersed into the game.

The game also allows you to collect items called “power nodes,” which can be used to upgrade your weapons and RIG (your armor suit) to hold more ammo, do more damage, withstand more hits, etc. The game also makes use of a store system used to buy and sell supplies and resources (as to why you have to do this on an abandoned ship with no security to thwart you is beyond me, but it taught me a thing or two about rationing medkits).

Aside from the expected horror-driven atmosphere, which is best enjoyed late at night in the dark alone, the game makes use of some interesting physics puzzles. The game has several zero-gravity environments where Isaac can leap around and walk on walls, ceilings, and such. Isaac also makes use of two things called “stasis” and “kinesis.” Stasis allows you to slow down pretty much anything that moves. This can range from enemies, which you can slow down to help you line up your shots, to fast-moving OSHA-violating machinery that would slice you to bits just from standing near it. Kinesis lets you pick up and move/punt objects (sort of like the Gravity Gun…well, exactly like the Gravity Gun). Combine this with some zero-gee rooms and you’ve some some really interesting puzzles you have to think about for a few minutes before trying to solve.

The inventory and map screen are displayed in-game in real-time, meaning the game doesn’t pause as you’re looking through your inventory or your map. As a result, make sure you’ve completely cleared out a room before consulting your map. Thankfully, you can just press X to administer a medkit from your inventory.

On another note, since your RIG suit only has a limited supply of air in a vacuum (you can upgrade this capacity as you progress), sometimes it’s important to use an air tank in your inventory to refill and not die. However, you can’t just press a button to use it. You have to open your inventory, go through your items to find your air can, and use it. Add this to the panic you’ll feel once you get down to under 15 seconds of air and you’ll feel that much more relief when you see your air timer refill.

However, for the all of the hype surrounding the horror and scare-you-shitless elements of this game, I felt a little bit disappointed. The game didn’t have as many heart-stopping scares as I thought it would, but it still had enough to make me feel uneasy. Don’t get me wrong, it had a few “OH SHIT” moments, but I felt like I was promised more. It really works best when you have surround sound set up in your home theater. Sometimes, you’ll hear a pipe burst or something clatter behind you, and it’s enough to make you turn around and wonder what made the noise. Once you see nothing malicing you, you’ll cautiously continue about your mission.

The sound design for this game is top-shelf. The sound of the weapons slicing through flesh, circular saws grinding against bone and steel, the horrified screams of the victims, and the actually IN CHARACTER voice work makes this game worth picking up just for the sound.

If sound and gameplay aren’t enough for you, add visual icing to the cake that is Dead Space. This game is GORGEOUS.

Get it? GORE-geous? I’m such a comedian.

Plus, any time you get to look out into space, you’ll be taken by the sheer beauty of it. Just don’t be taken too long, or you’ll run out of air.

So, would I recommend it? Absolutely. Get this game. You’ll love it.

Apparently Obama’s campaigning in Burnout Paradise. What the fuck.

Driving around Paradise City, you’ll see a big billboard with his face on it. VOTE FOR CHANGE!

Why isn’t this one of the billboards you can get an Achievement for smashing through?

Try this: Load up Call of Duty 4 and see if there are any “Vote McCain” ads anywhere.
Also try: Load up GTA IV, go to a strip club with Roman, and look for Palin ads.

You didn’t hear this from me. Who are you people?

So I’m sitting in the lounge at the student center at the University, pondering what to do with this massive four-and-a-half-hour gap I have between classes (don’t ask). Then, it dawned on me. I could write a blog post. And so this blog post was born.

I’ve really been indulging in a lot of Rock Band 2 in the last month, and I’m really enjoying it. Now’s the part where I rave about all of the things that should’ve been in the first game.

Single player and online World Tour! Now I can make tons of money all by myself and I’m not stuck playing the same setlists over again. Plus, I can just drop right into my friend’s band and rock out with him.

Bands don’t require a leader anymore! That concept was just dumb. One character that always had to be there when you did the World Tour? I have several characters I play as.

No more crazy randomly-generated bandmates when yours are absent! Just assign your characters to stand in, and they’ll always be rocking out with you, whether you’re alone or rocking as a group.

Characters aren’t limited to one instrument anymore! Again, also a dumb concept.

All DLC is compatible with all Rock Band games! You can even transfer the disc tracks from Rock Band 1 to Rock Band 2, for 400 Microsoft Points. That’s 55 songs out of the original 58. The songs you can’t transfer are:

- Enter Sandman – Metallica
- Run to the Hills – Iron Maiden
- Paranoid – Black Sabbath

One thing I noticed in RB2 was the guitar and bass difficulty seem more realistic (and so therefore, a lot more intuitive) than Rock Band 1. It looks harder at first, but you get used to it. Still, fuck Visions and I hope it dies in a fire. Even on Hard it’s diabolical. I get to about 11% and then I fail. At least the Expert notechart has hammer-ons. Fuck that song. If you can beat Visions on Expert in any way, shape or form, you’re a fucking freak.

To correspond with the launch of RB2, Harmonix launched their new website for Rock Band last Monday. You can take high-res pictures of your band members, get it printed on T-shirts, posters, make figurines, etc. It’s all really cool. Here’s a nice, juicy high res shot of my band, Blue Team.

Give you ten seconds to figure out which one is me.

It seems Harmonix is right on par with Valve when it comes to meeting expected release dates that they announced weeks in advance. The website was three weeks late. Now, I’m sure developing a system that can look at a player’s gamesave, see all of their characters and be able to render them in any pose is a massive undertaking, and I’ll give them credit for that. But, they KNEW that as soon as the site went live, there would be a TIDAL WAVE of players trying out the new features, and, as expected, the system was taking upwards of up to nine hours to render one picture. Of course, coming to the site, you see the massive “BETA” label at the top of the page. Why are people allowed to write off slipshod performance by calling it a beta? If it’s a beta, don’t release it yet! I’d rather have something that works perfectly later than something that only works half of the time now. I’m looking at you, Valve, and your Team Fortress 2 beta. Yeah, that’s right.

But I digress.

I’ve also been playing a lot of Castle Crashers. If you’ve ever played Alien Hominid, it’s done by the same guys, who are also the big head honchos over at Newgrounds. If you don’t have Castle Crashers, it’s $15 on the XBL marketplace, and it’s pretty much a two-and-a-half-dimensional side-scroller beat-em-up. It’s a lot of fun. The music in that game is fucking awesome.

Finally, Dead Space comes out next Tuesday. Who’s gonna be up till 4 AM in the dark, being scared shitless by that game. Me, that’s who.

So now I have about THREE hours to go until my next class. Anyone seen any good movies recently? Get any good Spy kills? Beat Visions on Expert 100%? Ha, I kid, because that’s fucking impossible.

So yeah, I promised the post-show post would be on Friday, but some things came up that I was busy with, plus Jake was still uploading pictures. However, now I’m ready. Here goes.

The show went down at La Zona Rosa in Austin, on 4th Street just past Guadalupe Street. There’s some good parking there, $5 for eight hours.

The VIP tickets let you in early so you could meet the band before they got ready to perform. They were handing out free posters, signing stuff. Emppu and Marco were clearly drunk already, and Anette told me that Austin’s steak is some of the best she’s ever had. Go figure!

Nightwish had one band open for them, Sonata Arctica. If you’ve not heard of them, they’re another metal band coming out of Finland. They’ve been opening for Nightwish during their North American tour.

Note: This picture is NOT from the Zona Rosa show. Thanks, Wikipedia!

They were really good. I might consider looking into some of their stuff.

They played about a 45-minute set. Not very long, but still very good.

Then the roadies readied the stage for the real performance. Jake got a shot of the setlist:

They were incredible. Every time I see them Anette’s live singing gets better and better.  More pictures!

Jake took some of these pictures with a grayscale filter on his camera, and they came out really good, in my opinion.

This is one of the most awesome poses I’ve ever seen.

The beard is the source of his power.

And then there’s this awesome shot.

That light is clearly coming from Emppu’s head. He’s just that incredible. Seriously. He makes those fucking hammer-ons look easy.

More shots from the Nightwish 2008 show can be found over here.

Sadly, no Nightwish-brand condoms this year, either. All they had were T-shirts and CDs. Oh well, better luck next time.

Once again, these guys never fail to put on a spectacular show. The next show will be Kamelot in San Antonio, October 31st. Maybe they’ll have band-brand condoms.

This blog post comes to you from my iPhone in front of La Zona Rosa’s stage waiting for tonight’s Nightwish show. It will no doubt be too epic for this Spartan to withstand.

Post-show post (lol) will be up on Friday. L8rz.

I started my first year at Texas State University the other day. I took some pictures on my phone. Behold.

Lyndon B. Johnson Student Center. This place has the bookstore, food courts, game rooms, TV rooms, several classrooms, and an auditorium or three.

One of many pictures/paintings/statues honoring Lyndon B. Johnson, who was educated at Texas State.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays there’s a five-hour gap between classes. In the bookstore they had Duck Hunt on an NES. Nothing better to do, I gave it a shot. Is 633,100 a high score in Duck Hunt?

This is the library. Six floors of just BOOKS. By far one of the largest buildings on the campus.

This area of the campus is called “The Quad.” Along this stretch are a lot of the lecture halls, with the administration building and the dean’s office at the very far end. This shot is looking back towards the library.

A map of the campus. I was unaware of the “You Aren’t Here” when I took the picture. The entire campus sits on a massive hill. Walking from the lot where I park to LBJ is heinous. Thank God for the buses.

One of the bus stops.

And now for something completely different:

Rose is on the left, Niko is on the right.

OM NOM NOM NOM

I’m writing this from my iPhone, using this WordPress app I got for free from the app store. Sweet! Typing is still a little hard, though.

I was fiddling around with my new iPhone at work today and I took some pictures of the call center. Shitty quality pictures follow!

One (of many) workstations:

Another shot of my workstation:

A shot out into the middle of the floor, with my boss’s workstation in sight (it’s the one with the New Zealand flag)