Defense Grid: Containment

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I’ve made no secret to my friends that Defense Grid is my favorite tower defense game at this point.  The story and the game play both are pretty solid, amazing, and even fun. Sadly I hadn’t gotten around to playing all the expansion story lines, but at this point I have and am very grateful. The twists over the eight maps of this one were pretty good, I actually kept playing more for the story this time around than the game play. Though, as mentioned, the new maps and stuff are really cool and I quite enjoyed them (apparently it’s feast or famine for me on these: bronze or blow gold out of the water).

All in all it’s an awesome part of the franchise and I can’t wait for a Defense Grid 2; but heck I’d even throw funds into a Kickstarter to get another map pack like this one!

What do I want to see from comics in 2013?

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Over the last few months I’ve tried to think about what I want to see in comics. What I’ve discovered is that if I get what I want then I’m missing out on the surprises from all these creators. Books like Mara wouldn’t be as much of a shock if I just got what I wanted. But there are a few things here and there and a small bit of returns that I’d like to see happen.

The Firefly comics have been good and I wish Shepard Book’s story had been longer. I would like to see more stories that are just as engaging. Speaking of the book Mara, I’d like to see more random stories like that; we don’t just need things in the super-hero universes. Though in that universe I’d like to see more Bruce Banner, less “the other guy” and more John Stewart on the DC front. Gritty and dark get thrown around a lot, but at this point I’d like to see that with a bit more realism; even people with horrible luck don’t have everything go wrong at every turn.

I’d like to see Darkwing Duck and Farscape comics come back. Both were amazing and a joy to read. Cassandra Cain is the last of the Bat-family that I miss having around; she’s my favorite Batgirl and member of Batman Incorporated, shouldn’t be that hard to bring her back around.

Speaking of Batman, I’d like to see him being a detective more often. I know “Detective Comics” is supposed to be that part, but it seems less cerebral and more action oriented. Due to my age “Batman: The Animated Series” is the quintessential Batman to me; not the comics one. I’m not sure if that’s blasphemy or not, but it is what it is and makes me want the “all knowing” Batman and more Bruce Wayne in general.

Time Commitments: Working Out

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For the last year or so I’ve been dedicated 15 to 90 minutes a day to “working out” either in the gym or in my apartment. I’ve lost a bit of size in the mean time and gained a lot of health. I’ve also gained a lot of new clothes since none of my old ones fit. Most weeks I do one hour, six days a week; when I’m pressed for time (or sleep) it tends to go down to just 100 crunches, 20 push-ups, and 10 pull-ups. Fitocracy has been a great help in getting me going and will continue to be once I’m feeling better (finally over being sick!). Much of this routine has culminated in my starting to play basketball, something I couldn’t do for very long even six or seven months ago.

Back to the subject of Fitocracy, one of the things I wished it had/tracked is the amount of time a certain rep set took. Much of what I do at this point is about a certain number of reps almost as fast as possible; it’s a pain to track those separately from the XP-carrot world that is Fitocracy. Additionally, my Nike FuelBand is pretty bad for weight lifting but amazing for cardio; with my commute changing I may end up adding running six days a week instead of just two to three.

Interestingly I’ve been finding the payoff from working out the second best of all my commitments (time with wife is number one). An hour in the morning tends to lead to a very productive day, though two hours in the morning tend to lead to a lull and needing to go to bed early. With just a single hour I seem to feel healthier, be losing some size (and weight in some cases, too), and be more productive. This seems like a great tradeoff to me!

Time Commitments: Music

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Three rehearsals a week, plus practice time when I can find it. So 10 hours a week, plus transportation time. That’s a lot of time for a hobby! But it’s a hobby that keeps me sane. In recent months I’ve started to tone in a back a bit; right now I’m on closer to 3 hours a week in music, balancing the rest in to work and basketball. But in a “normal” week in the past it was a minimum of 10 hours. Whilst I enjoy playing Bass Trombone it was taking on aspects of a very low paying (i.e. zero) second job, thus the cutting back a bit. However, butting back highlighted how much I needed that time every week for the sanity it helped instill in me.

Time Commitments: Writing

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The closest thing to a “New Years Resolution” for me was to start writing more. This seemed more doable when I was basically on vacation; the real wold of time and commitments hasn’t been as nice or forgiving. In some ways I should probably be good with that as it means that I get to do a lot of things throughout the week. But much like cutting back on music it’s having an effect elsewhere on my psyche and body. Writing is as much about documenting things that are going on as it is about releasing some creativity that gets bottled up; if it stays bottled up too long it tends to explode in some unforeseeable manner of oddity.

All things being equal I really should like to spend one hour, six days a week writing. Fifteen (15) minutes to get my brain in the right place, thirty (30) minutes for actual writing, and fifteen (15) minutes for editing. Sadly, finding an uninterrupted hour given my job and other responsibilities is more difficult than it probably should be. Thankfully my commute to and from work is just about an hour long! Sounds perfect, except I tend to need to write code or take phone calls given it’s work time.

Going forward things look to be changing and my schedule will open up for all the things mentioned, only time will tell at this point.

Time Commitments: Basketball

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In an effort to diversify myself a bit I’ve joined a basketball team. At 6′ and 260lbs I’m not the most agile one on the court, but I’m slowly learning how to throw my weight around a bit. It’s made getting rebounds a bit easier at times; people tend to knock themselves off their trajectory when jumping in to me. Given my short-ish height I do have a hard time playing center but I’ve been making it up playing shooting guard and forward a bit. Rebounding is an odd thing I’ve been finding, so much of it is based on initial position yet balanced by “hustle” and tenacity to just move the person near you.

I’ve heard time and time again about how sports teach one a lot about themselves (and how music does, too), but I had forgotten just how much; it’s been years since I played soccer or rugby in an organized fashion. The amount one learns about their body is amazing enough, much less how one operates under pressure and in awkward social situations.

Tonight is our second play-off game against the team that went highly undefeated throughout the season; it will probably be our last play-off game of this season. No matter what happens, it should be fun and entertaining in some way! Win or lose it was still a fun experience that I hope I can make time for going forward.

Sublime Text: Purchased!

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Previously I talked about how I was going to experiment with moving all of my text editing to Sublime Text; this has been completed. While I still have TextMate installed I only use it to keep a “pristine” copy opened when checking changes/versions, or copy-pasting information. The ease of having one editing platform on every major OS platform that I’m programing in has been amazing, far more than I previously thought.

Whilst I didn’t think of coding as a visual medium previously I’m starting to understand that side of things a bit more. When every screen has the same look and feel it actually makes transitioning easier. I still have to go between Command and Alt for a lot of things; but that’s more on the keyboard setups than on any given application. In tracking the time I spent converting from OSX to Windows, OSX to Linux, and Windows to Linux they all went from around 15 minutes to about 3 minutes over the course of the month; the only real change being the text editors.

Since the “bundles” in Sublime Text are based on TextMate bundles I was able to get some old ones up and running very quickly. Additionally there’s a package manager that’s maintained by the community that makes installing a lot of extensions far easier to use. Getting a python lint utility and Django syntax highlighting was a breeze and has made using Django that much easier.

All in all, a worth while investment for anyone looking for a new, light-weight, flexible text editor that can pretty much do it all.

Defense Grid – You Monster

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Expansion usually lack a bit in story, at least compared to their base version. Cross over games usually fair even worse. Thankfully, “Defense Grid – You Monster” doesn’t fall to either of these. I won’t say it’s better than the base story, but I will say it’s a great addition to not only the story but to game play as well.

GLaDOS is as hilarious as ever, and hearing her “conversations” with the Grid AI make for some great tension. This doesn’t work without amazing voice acting, so my hats off to those involved there. The tone of the story is a bit different in that it’s not just about betting aliens to save humanity, it’s about stopping a crazy program who wants to invite the aliens you already stopped back, going as far as to re-open the portal that you closed last time! The tension is kept high until the very last map, creating a very nice resolve and sense of completion to the whole thing.

There’s no new towers, but there are levels where the towers available change throughout; placement of things is pretty standard, until you realize you have to let them steal the “power” first only to get it back to the other receptacle. The minion combinations are something very different while retaining some of the same characteristics; though I did find there to be less aerial assaults than previous map sets. While challenging nothing ever seemed impossible, which is a very difficult balancing act for a game like this.

All in all this is a great addition to the tower defense genre than many other developers should take notice of.

My Favorite Robin(s)

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In sync with the rankings I’ve been thinking about recently, here are the Robin’s (not including what they did afterwards) in my favorite order.

  1. Tim Drake
  2. Dick Grayson
  3. Damian Wayne
  4. Stephanie Brown
  5. Jason Todd

In many ways I think I like Tim because he’s the one I can relate the most to. He’s not the most physical, but he makes do; he’s not the most charismatic, but can get people to listen; doesn’t have the pedigree to be a street fighter; is a guy; is the best with computers of the bunch. He is the detective, and the one that tries to get people to just get along by showing them how to do it.

Dick Grayson is the original and in many ways the template for all the future Robins to follow. Everything about him is what I thought I wanted to be as a kid: athletic, handsome, charismatic, care free. As I grew older I realized that’s not me, and that’s probably for the best, there’s enough of those. Around the same time I started reading the stories with Tim and he is my Robin for the reasons above. But actually going back and reading some of the Robin stories from before, and the Teen Titans books, Grayson does a damn bang up job.

it wasn’t until a very recent issue in the New 52 that I started to like Damian; he went from brat to Robin in one teary frame. As Robin he does a great job balancing the physical prowess needed and the detective work that makes the dynamic duo work so well.

Stephanie’s run was short lived, but memorable in many ways, and not for how it ended to me. She was Tim’s girlfriend so she always knew she had someone to talk to about it, and an ally when Batman was being “a sour puss” to her. She was the flawed Robin, the one who never quit took it seriously in all reality, even though she thought she took it the most serious.

Jason seemed whiney, defensive, and a very odd choice for the Batman to allow to carry on and not just ship off to some corner of the world of dump off at Titan Tower. Something about him as Robin never settled right. In reading through some of the more recent Damian stories I wonder if that’s who Jason was supposed to be written like and why they’ve had so many great moments together. But as a Robin, Jason never seemed to quite “get it together” for me to like in that role.

Post Robin Order

  1. Tim Drake
  2. Dick Grayson
  3. Jason Todd
  4. ??? (fate unknown)
  5. Stephanie Brown

I own the complete Red Robin series from just before the relaunch. Grayson is just one of my favorite characters, and Nightwing has always been written so well. Jason was wishy washy but is now a very solid character in his own right, I look forward to Red Hood every month now. Stephanie displaced by favorite Batgirl (Cassandra) so she goes at the bottom. Damian we don’t know yet, so he gets a place holder at four.

Final Ranks of Fantasy

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Started writing this a  month ago (after seeing this) and was trying to figure out how to go more in depth; but alas there’s so many it was more just talking points. This is just the “main” series as Tactics would be number one otherwise.

  • FF X
    • Nostalgia! When I wasn’t playing Bass Trombone or hanging out at the beach this is what I did the summer I graduated from high school; there were even a couple of times I went to sleep playing the game only to wake up to the Sphere Grid and its calming music. The music was pretty darn cool; haunting piano transitioning to Japanese metal…I still listen to it all to this day.
  • FF V
    • Awesome job system made for some awesome gameplay as well. The story may have been “lacking” for some people but it gold a hold of me and didn’t let go. Add in some solid music and endearing graphics you’d have my favorite game if it wasn’t for the soundtrack and nostalgia factor of X for me.
  • FF VII
    • Valid arguments for best overall game to be sure, it pushed the genre in a lot of way, and materia was so good they haven’t tried to go back to it exactly. One of the most emotional moments of any game comes when the poor flower girl has the life stolen from her; I still get a little choked up and go “WHY?!” whenever I play through that section.
  • FF VI
    • This was FF3 here in the states, I bought the game without owning an SNES at the time (cousin and friends had one) to go with my copy of Zelda: A Link To the Past. That’s how good this game really is.
  • FF XIII
    • Great music, and sometimes playing a movie can be fun.
  • FF IV
    • After playing it through on the PS1 I started to see where other things came from; it was the setup for so many things to come down the line.
  • FF I
    • So much for being the last game, eh? There is something awesome about seeing “where it all began” and how far we’ve come. There’s been a lot of re-releases and re-mixes of the game, but the NES copy I have will always be the “real” version for me.
  • FF IX
    • I understand the story was decent, but there’s just something about this game that has never been able to grab me like the games above did. The clone story was awesome, but the game play got in my way of enjoying any of it; that and the first disc being a bunch of movies to watch.
  • FF VIII
    • …I like the theory that he dies at the end of the first disc, it made the game better for me. I like most of the characters whilst in Kingdom Hearts as opposed to in this one.
  • FF III
    • It’s interesting playing this AFTER playing through IV; the later games avoid the mistakes this one made.
  • FF XII
    • Good news: I’m a great AI programmer! Bad news: that makes for a bad game.
  • FF II
    • Somewhat like IX this game just never really got me all that excited to play it; not even the music.