Nuclear Crap Dump

Happy Towel Day!

Oh, and I've started writing a Golden Sun fanfiction. Once I get the first chapter up, you guys will be the first to know about it!

(A new post in the spirit of Valentine's Day. If not a little late)


"Love. It's impossible to escape, yet we all dream of catching it. It allures the strongest of us, and tempts the weak. We all fail. Yet in the end, all are winners." - Forten Eziol

On this date, Nuclear Crap Dump celebrates it's first year in service! Yay! *applaud*In honor of this occasion, I may do a cooperative review of a certain game with Bob. But later.

For now, I'm going to review important events in the history of Nuke Crap. So get some sappy music, this might be long. (Any of these, would do)
The Truths: Oct 27- Several times throughout the short history of my blog, I have told the story of my life, and my opinion on things. Near the start of it's life, I dropped a big bombshell. That's right. I'm an atheist. (although I do believe in some things, like Karma) This was a relatively short post, but was filled with a lot of power, and emotions. I wouldn't take it back. I always have a right to share my opinion. And I will continue to do so until this blog dies one day.

Me Trying to Be Funny:  Nov.3- In this post, I tried to be funny, by making no sense whatsoever. You can see how it worked out. That's why I never make a joke post. It jusst leaves an awkward silence with those two viewers of mine... Although honestly, I don't know who can really pull of a joke post very well.I've seen some on forums, but they got locked quite often.

Big Brother is Watching Sitemeter: Nov. 10- Sitemeter. Because of Blogger's "Stats" System, You don't really need Sitemeter anymore. It's kinda... obsolete. But still, it provided me with updates on my small, but growing blog. Also, It led up to my next point. Being:

Google is Following Me...: Dec. 4 and Dec. 6- At first, I just though some dude in Europe was using the Android to look at my blog. But of course, that was not so. It was a Google bot looking for looking at sentences I had typed, and adding them to Google's  search queries. BUT WAIT! There's more! It seemed that Google had boosted my popularity by a bit. At least 20-40% more hits on my blog. Perhaps employees checking it out? Who knows? I don't. But Google helping me doesn't end there either. Just recently, I looked at Blogger's "Stats" system, just to check out what it was about. and I found preeety much all of my search word hits come from some form of Google. And about 35% of them are from  this Muramasa sword. (Thanks bob!) And one in Russian that was hard to recognize. (меч мурамаса) In English, guess what it was? Muramasa sword. Now, I got a lot of hits outside of Bob's help, many through Earthbound, Costume Quest, and Pyschonauts. But still, props to Bob for helping me out.

The Meme to End all Memes: Dec 1. -31- International Meme Month. An idea I created purely because I wanted to, honestly. Since Bob did NaNoWriMo, I wanted something to prove a challenge to me. I like the Internet, and all of it's weirdo things, so I thought it would be perfect. It was a tough challenge, but the round is coming up again this you. But this time, boht Bob and I will be doing NaNo and IMM this year. Look out for it. I doubt Sean will do it, but, meh. He has better things to do then appease me, and I understand that. I got my new cool new blog template during this month.
 
Hey! I'm On Earthbound!: Jan.6- Rejoice! I was found by a popular site. Which at the time, I frequented. I look in the "Community News" part of the Weekly review, "Earthbound... Journal... Weird tit- Wait! That's my weird title!" My fame was mainly a large spike, by about one hundred or so. It was great. I think I appeared one more time under my PK Hackin' post. I doubt I ever kept any of those one-time viewers, sadly.

Videos, and Pretty Ones Too: Jan. 14 - Ah.. Sean showed me how to add videos this day. I added a recent one that he had showed me too, as a test. "Tis a video about everyone's favorite plumber..." I think is how I put it back then. I've used videos several times since then, on Psychonauts, for Earthbound, to show you new things I'm keeping up with, all that stuff. They've become a big part of my blog, and if you've clicked all the first link here, you should be listening to one right now.

Hack 'dat Game!: I don't remember when I started - I have pretty much given up on this as of now, but I may return to it when I feel in the mood for it. I said that I would hack Earthbound, and make it more like my life, changing enemies, sprite art, text, map, doors, even the whole damn storyline. A BIG hack. It was too big for me. As I said, maybe when I get some more experience under my belt, I'll restart this. Look forward to more updates about this in the future.

We Can Do it if We Work Together: Mar. 22-Mar.25 - Game Week was an idea Bob had before me. And we talked about joining together for a while. So we finally worked it out, and I added him to the Nuclear Crap Crew for a week. We each did a good, and bad post. Psychonauts, and Golden Sun for me. He chose Muramasa, and Tales of Symphonia 2. We drew together almost all of my search hits with one week. Impressive, eh? We wanted to do a co-op post to end it off, and maybe this week, we finally will. But will it be Twilight Princess? Maybe, maybe not. Just wait and see.

Well, that was a brief history of Nuke Crap.  I hope you got some nostalgia out of  it. Bob (No, I'm not calling you Utopiasaur) is having his first birthday soon as well. Be sure to check him out as well.

Well, this has been Forten042 with Nuke Crap's first birthday. Make a wish (or suggestion) and leave it in the comment section.

Farewell, Forteno42, signing off.

I haven't really updated in a while... Anyway, I am here today to tell you more about Double Fine's brand new game, "Costume Quest."

Now Costume Quest is basically the game we all thought of on Halloween, but no one ever made it. You transform into your costumes! It's an RPG, with adventure elements. You go door to door collecting candy, which is like the currency. At the door, there will either be a  'Trick' or 'Treat,' where a goblin or other monster will show up at the door, and you will go into battle with him, or a normal dude, who will give you some candy.

Now you're probably thinking, "Hey, this game sounds childish and boring, why would I want to play it?" Well, thank you for asking. First of all, it's Double Fine. When have they let us down before? But the main reason, the RPG combat. When you run into a  monster, you will go into a battle with them. It is what you would expect in a battle, turn by turn, special moves, all that stuff. Your special attack (Missile Barrage, in this picture) will power up as you fight battles. so you have to decide whether you will wait for an emergency, a boss, or just use it right away. It is pretty much a classic-style RPG, like Final Fantasy VI. At the end of every battle, you get items for healing, and experience, and somehow beat some candy out of your enemies, like over-sized piñatas. And like the Mario RPG series, there is a timing kind of thing, where you have to press a button before an enemy hit connects with you, to defend, and take less damage.

This game comes from Tasha Harris, one of the main programmers of their latest metal RPS, Brütal Legend. (Fun fact: She used to be a senior animator at Pixar!) She says "I'm inspired by a lot of games like Wind Waker, Animal Crossing, Katamari Damacy, I just kinda like that simple style." Well that sounds like good news for me, I loved all those games. Seeing what Tasha did in Brütal Legend, I hope this game doesn't fall below standards.

Tim Schafer has made games like this in the past, Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, but never an RPG. This game also won't be available for retail. It comes on on the Xbox Live Acrade, and PlayStation Network around Groundhogs Day. Or at least before Valentines Day. That means it would make a nice present for a certain someone's birthday. (hint hint)

If you haven't heard the news, Double Fine plans to release several of these kinds of games (four to be specific, 2 retail, 2 downloadable) this year. We don't know any of the others yet, but Schafer split his crew into four different groups, each working on a different game. The groups are like this:

Lee Petty, the art director on Brütal Legend is making a game that's "sort of retro but also really new."

Nathan Marts, senior programmer for Brütal Legend is working on a game described as "quite cutting edge."

Brad Muir, who did a lot of the combat stuff in Brütal Legend, is doing a game that "focuses on gameplay mechanics."

And Tasha, of course, is working on Costume Quest!

Now here comes a surprise to me. While listening to an interview of sort on Gametrailers, I heard Tim Schafer say this about his game: "Also, the gameplay speaks back to some games we really liked when we were younger, adds some nostalgia to it. That old-school gameplay style, games like Earthbound."

 *jawdrop*

E-E-E-Earthbound?! The Earthbound I've been hacking for several months? The Earthbound Nintendo still hasn't released on the Virtual Console? Yes. That Earthbound. This line makes me respect Tim Schafer just so much more. Anyway, back onto Double Fine.

Double Fine has always made great games. This might not continue forever, so I need to enjoy it before it turns into something like the others.  You know that Microsoft wants a piece of any profit, Bungie's, Lionhead's, etc. Luckily, (or maybe unluckily) Double Fine hasn't had much luck in the way of money. (see the bottom paragraph) But that doesn't mean they are giving up! Unlike Rare, Double Fine still makes it's great ol' games.

Rare. How full she far she has fallen. Now they are working on a Wii Sports clone, Kinect Sports. When Nuts and Bolts came out, A lot of people gave up on Rare. I didn't though. Until now. I finally see that my favorite game company is dead. Rest in Peace, Rareware.

I hope this has been helpful, and maybe swayed your opinion about getting a DF game. You can check out their site here for updates, and comics Scott C. writes every week. I hope to see you soon, as Nuke Crap's 1st year in service quickly approaches.

Forten042, signing out.

For those of my viewers who somehow don't already know, it's Towel Day today! On this day you must bring your towel around all day with you to show your remembrance, and respect of the great (yes bob,  I can say "great" here) Douglas Adams.

Today was slightly better than last year's. For once, people actually knew what Towel Day was, and I'm sure some one besides my close friends brought one. But today is not a day to think of the past, today is a day to look forward to the future. Who knows, maybe one day cars will be powered by towels.

"Bob: No. That's stupid."

Okay, maybe something less stupid. Anyway, today was quite nice. I suppose that it could have been slightly better, in the ways of participation. But I really can't expect anyone to bring a towel to school, for a reason they could care less about. Sadly Mr. Bauckman also forgot, but that can be understood, considering he has a terrible cold.

I wrote a story in Free Wring today called "50 Uses for a Towel." I don't know what really compelled me to do this, I just kind of felt like it. It isn't too interesting, so I'll just forget about it for now. By the way, did you know that Douglas Adams has his own brand of Bath Towel? It's true, as I hope you can see.Well, It's inspired by him. I don't think he actually made it, but maybe.

Anyway, I have not progressed much in my hack recently. But, I did integrate my first of the "grave" system. Basically, I am referencing all of the stuff in my old, crappy hack. This 'grave' is for Chronically depressed  Paula. To be honest, I am glad that that idea died with the hack, it would have been really... odd. To say the least.

Anyway, I'll keep you informed on all the little things I manage to do. Who knows, maybe one day, before like, the world ends in 3 billion years, it will be done. That won't be anytime soon though, at my rate. After this, I might try messing around with CT, like Sean hinted at. (well, kinda hinted at)











 

Yay! My first update about Earkbound. (Or whatever I come up with for a title) I am not actually going to show you how to edit maps, (unless some random protoplasm just walks trudges in) But more about my map edit. I cleared away a little part of the trees in Onett, and made a little aclove. It's nothing really big. But I thought since it is my first map edit, and I am quite proud of it, that I would show it to you. That, and nobody besides Sean has had any real update with my progress along my hack project. I have learned a lot over the time since I started, (namely, Text editing is hard) and have made a lot of mistakes. (You will hear about them if I decide to include that "Hack Graveyard" in place of Threed's normal one)  But my most notable success to this point is Map editing. That and Spock :D

Another one of my little Bloopers, is with the Sharks. A guy who asks you if you want to join the Sharks (Which of course, had to be changed, considering you are in the Sharks) asks if you want gum. If you say Yes, he tells you to come when you finish Earthbound. You say No, He goes "..." And beats you up.

Maybe you don't think it's funny, but it's the first line of humor I wrote. So whatever. My next plan is to edit the map of Magicant, and figure out how to edit doors. That might be useful. After that I need to come up with a better name than Earkbound. I have a lot of stuff on my "To Hack" list, so I might not get around to it for a while. But you can expect to see these every now and then.

Until then, This is Forten042 saying goodbye.

P.S. Considering how cool Game Week was, I might review something now and again. Still not professionally though.

It's Bob again with my second last post here until further notice. This is going to be a very hateful post, I warn you. The reason for such is that Fory wanted be to do a post about a game I really disliked. Now I dislike few games, but TOS2 as I'll call it, is, in many people's opinions, an utter disgrace to the tales series. Now, you could bring up Tales of The World, but that doesn't count. This is the sequel to the original TOS, which was an amazing game, yet for some reason, Namco screwed us all. Onto the hating.

A noticeable change in gameplay is the forming of pacts between monsters. After you defeat your opponents and meet certain requirements, you can make a pact with a monster and have it join you. A bit like Shin Megami Tensei's games in fact... All in all, the battle system actually got worse. I'll give it a 4/10 just because I found it bearable. If there's anything good here, it's the animation, which is top notch. It's obvious motion capture was used here, and it's used to great effect. Now if only the rest of the game was up to par...
The lack of color leaves a muted, barren wasteland for your eyes to see. Grrreat. I cringe when I just think about the graphics...