More Posts

Summer Means More Posts

Summer brings along plenty of things, including sun, laughter, and fun, but it also gives me time.

So now that I have more time to do more things, I will be putting up more posts consistently over the summer until I either run out of content entirely or lose time to my summer course or the gaming group that my friends and I have been planning. Anyhow, just thought I'd explain why all of the sudden there will be something like a post per day.

Yet Another Game Review: Cave Story

After an hour and a half I managed to narrow down a list of indie games to two finalists. Hopefully I'll be able to write about the other finalist tomorrow, but the game that really was amazing in my opinion was Cave Story.

Cave Story (or Dōkutsu Monogatari) is a 2004 platform-adventure game that follows the adventures of a robot trying to save a floating island. The game was developed by just one guy, Daisuke Amaya. This is saying something since there is around 5 hours of game play (if you know what you're doing) with plenty of text from characters and maps.

I spent two hours (or more, I probably lost track of time) reaching the half point of the game (I have played this game before), where I was told by my brother that I could not save the other main protagonist, Curly Brace. Devastated. I was just completely lost. I felt like there was nothing else I could do. The only three objectives I had in the game was to get Chaco's Lipstick, defeat the boss, and save Curly. After the news I screwed around for five minutes before rage quitting and deleting my save file. It really is saying something if I quit a game I've invested two hours into just because I want to save another character (and I don't even need to save Curly). Somehow Daisuke Amaya was able to make me care and love the two characters with the smallest amount of text.

This game has never lost it's style for me. I'm always glad whenever I hit the "New" button. This game infuses many things, including different endings (gotta love it when your choices really make up your game), hours of gaming, and catchy original music (created by who else but the one man developing team Daisuke Amaya). The game and it's translation (the original is in Japanese for any Japanese reading/speaking people out there) is downloadable here. Cave Story is one of my favourite games of all time, because I have childhood memories tied to it and it was one of the first games I remember playing.

Over Optimistic?

A few days ago I felt just really optimistic. I "knew" that everything would turn out fine a few years from now, and that I would have my dream job, with my dream wife, with my dream house. I felt that anything I did right now or later would always lead up to one possibility. I didn't care about the girl that I liked, I didn't care about anything. I was, in a way, over optimistic.

Now that I'm out of this happy pit, I really wonder if that's a good thing. I was wandering oblivious in a world full of nothing but joy and glee, but does that render me stupid to the reality of the world? Maybe it's like when you become so drunk that you don't even care about anything.

Sad.

I am depressed because now I want to start over Cave Story just so I can save Curly (I actually refuse to finish the game without her), but that means there goes another two hours of my life. Science homework needs to be finished (however little it is), and studying needs to be taking place. I'm still not sure if I want to do a Pre-AP course next year, but I am warming up to the idea of it.

So I'm off to either do homework, study, restart Cave Story (I mean it, there is a 0.01% chance of me continuing without Curly), or play another game. It's been an easy day for me, just swimming and being on the computer for the rest of the day. I am an 8 today. I'm starting to lose track of the time. I thought that I already posted today and was pretty pooped because that would have meant posting about Cave Story tomorrow.

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." - Gertrude Stein