Saturday, April 18, 2009

Bottle caps

I think the decision by bottle manufacturers to remove the grip from their plastic caps was one of the most ass-backwards move of recent years. I can't open a 20oz bottle of soda anymore. Who made this decision? And who is still backing it? "Hey, let's make it so people can't open their soda bottles unless they have sandpaper on their fingertips!" Bottle caps worked fine 3 years ago, and now they don't. THEY DON'T WORK ANYMORE! The only possible explanation I can muster up is that someone hurt someone by scraping the rough surface against their eyeball and the soda companies determined that they could get in trouble for having a slightly rough surface on their bottle caps. WTF.

All I know is that it just took me far too long to open my iced tea.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Pointing Out Problems, Pt 2: Survival games

Do I hate survival/gauntlet games? I love and hate knowing that I should not win a game. Let me examine further. I love the idea of victory. If I don't immediately see victory within reach, I will probably move on to another game. So this becomes my problem today: to endure the challenges of a game where the end is unclear.

I do NOT endure unclear challenges because I prefer immediate success. If a game cannot present me with immediate goals and rewards, then I will not continue. Tell me what I am going for. Show me what I need to do. Do not leave me in the dark.

That is the point of some games, however. By not playing these games I am not understanding a section of the game spectrum. This section of games grows larger still because I generally dislike the zombie genre.

So here is my task: to beat Omar's Orthogonal Oyster Outing. A zombie survival game with unclear goals. And to clarify, the game does give the goal of reaching a helicopter. However, this is only stated within the readme and at this point I have yet to find any evidence of a copter or its whereabouts within the game. Therefore: unclear goal.

[note: I am also playing through Chrono Trigger, which is epic, and it could be stated that I am unclear on where the game might take me, though the goals are generally clear and close. But I am liking my first true foray into a jRPG.]