Error will always be Error

Pardon my ignorance, but I never knew about this.

Yes, this being a crazy, long-lived Internet meme stemming from a minor character in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and a bad case of localization. Which all happened back in 1988, when I was five. Call me aloof and/or a failure to gaming trivia–I won’t argue. I guess I was slightly aware of it, having maybe seen the phrase pop up when other bad localizations, such as “all your base are belong to us,” were discussed, but I never realized where it came from, and then I guess I always assumed it must’ve been corrected at some point. Um, no. I just discovered it myself yesterday while giving my free 3DS Ambassador copy a turn; Error is still there, and he is still Error, now and forever, always and never not.

So, Error lives in the town of Ruto, which is only a hop, skip, walk away from where the game begins. On my way there, a few monsters ran into me, changing the screen from world map to traditional side-scrolling fanfare, but I just exited to the left or right without fighting anything; sidenote, I don’t understand how to play Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Anyways, when talking to people in town, if you press the action button twice it totally skips their dialogue instead of speeding it up. I did this with Error initially, missing his infamous line. However, something about him drew me back, and this time I waited patiently for him to report that he was a coding failure. How weird.

This is probably the most shocking thing you’ve read today. Go me!

Achievements of the Week – The Calamity Hax0r1! Nut Edition

For this week, Achievements popped in only two games, but I also played a lot of Fallout: New Vegas (shocking, I know), as I’m slowly making progress on those ridiculous challenges added into the game via Gun Runners’ Arsenal, as well as aligning myself with Mr. House eventually. A part of me wants to pop in some older Xbox 360 games and go after a few Achievements, like finishing off LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean or doing that one for getting a ton of damage during a single case in L.A. Noire, but I kind of doubt that will happen. Something with my brain is working against me. Maybe though this weekend, seeing as the biggest of plans is pumpkin-picking and drawing.

Okay, here we go…

From Bastion…

Calamity Kid (30G): Complete the story in New Game Plus.

This didn’t take too long and was much easier than the first romp through. Probably because in New Game+ The Kid’s level and distillery drinks and weapon tweaks all carry over. Some levels I previously had trouble on were a breeze, even the dreamy parts of Who Knows Where. That doesn’t mean it was any less enjoyable, as it totally was. This game is constantly and consistently beautiful, sounds amazing, and it a blast to play. Also, it was nice to hear some more lines from the Narrator.

I also got another Achievement–the last one, actually, making for 12 out of 12–but it’s a hidden one and spoilery so that’s all I’ll say.

From Deus Ex: Human Revolution…

Consciousness is Over-rated (15G): Knock out 100 enemies in a single playthrough.

Hax0r1! (15G): Successfully hack 50 devices within the same playthrough.

The hacking mini-game is…interesting. I didn’t really understand it my first few attempts, and truth be told, I still don’t get it now, some 50+ hacks later, but I am better at it. You have to capture a bunch of nodes without getting noticed, and that’s made a whole lot easier with some Augmentation purchases. Hacking is a pretty important skill for getting into locked places, shutting off cameras, and reading people’s emails.

Also, this one’s definitely a contender for Achievement name of the year.

Gun Nut (20G): Fully upgrade one of your weapons.

I upgraded the tranquilizer rifle so that it reloads faster and fires better. Not that it’s doing me any good. Playing stealthy is one hill after another, and I’m just so ready to go tumbling down to the ground below. Next playthrough, I’m upgrading the shotgun fully and then taking everyone out with a single blast to the face.

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And how did you do this week? If you don’t speak up in the comments below, I’ll never know.

Second boss fight in Deus Ex: Human Revolution is worse than the first

I’ve not been enjoying Deus Ex: Human Revolution as much as I would like; on paper, everything sounds like golden mac and cheese, with plenty of sneaking and interrogating and unraveling and augments, but it turns out that playing it the way I like to play RPG shooters is probably not the best way to play it. Sure, it’s a way, but one easily described as elephantine difficult. I die a lot, I get spotted a lot, and I can’t read a majority of the emails thanks to tiny text syndrome, which means I only hack computers to gain XP for hacking, not for delving deeper in the world’s lore and bad grammar. It’s all a bit of a shame, but I feel this pressure to push on, to finish it, in hopes that I could play it again, this time with a run-and-gun approach, which seems simpler, but ironically safer.

The first boss fight in Deus Ex: Human Revolution nearly had me putting the game’s disc back in the box, the box back on the shelf, and the whole thing out of sight and mind. However, I pushed on, stubborn, and finally got through it. The whole thing was a disappointment, and I knew that more boss fights were to come, but a part of me assumed that maybe they got better, more varied, with some options still for pacifist players. If Yelena Fedorova is any indication, then no–they get worse.

Mute and augmented to the height of 6’7″, Fedorova is one helluva assassin. And if you want answers from Eliza, you need to take her out, which is no easy task. The boss battle takes place in a circular room, with an inner circle and outer circle. The floor is wet, not a detail to dismiss. Along the outer circle ring are four generators, which when destroyed send deadly electric zolts across the floor. If you were not playing the way I am playing, you could shoot Fedorova with guns, stunning her near the generators, and then explode them with more guns or grenades. If you have the right skin augmentation, you can take less damage from the electrified floor, otherwise you have to hop around like a noob on hot coals, praying your health holds up. Here’s the rub: I have no deadly guns and no skin augmentations. As a pacifist player, you have to hang around the generators and wait for Fedorova to charge at you, damaging the generator in the process. You receive damage from this, and then you also have to survive all the electrical damage. It’s tough. I tried numerous times, and the only solution was to switch the difficulty down to easy, which reduced the amount of damage Jensen took from the floor. Three exploded generators later and several popped painkillers, I got this:

The Mantis (25G): You defeated Yelena Fedorova, elite member of a secret mercenary hit squad.

During the first part of the game where you spend a lot of time in Detroit on the streets, I went after most of the sidequests before leaving the area and losing the chance to complete them. It’s the RPGer in me, having to finish up all those little mini tasks or at least see what they are about. Now, I skip them all and just want to finish up the main storyline as I’m so disheartened about my first playthrough (especially since I think I screwed myself over on the “don’t kill anyone” Achievement by using robots once) that I just want to see the whole story and then play it again very differently. Stay tuned for grumbling about the next boss fight, which I’m sure to hate.

One month to go until The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Today is 10/11/11, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim comes out on 11/11/11. That’s a month away (31 days exact!), and that is absolutely crazy-talk. How did it pop up so fast? Weren’t we all just sitting mesmerized by the debut trailer and the hint of true epicness, whispering excitedly about a new engine and dragons? I also just realized that our day of reckoning is a Friday, meaning there goes an entire weekend for certain. Fine by me.

And yet with the game so close to being openly devoured by the public, it’s strange that there’s still a lot we don’t know about it. Over the last few months, there’s been very few gameplay trailers, with maybe just one big guided play session by Todd “For the Nord” Howard, and a preview article here and there. That’s it. Only as recent as this week have more tidbits slipped, thanks to leaks about the game’s map and manual.

Story elements are minimal, and we’ve learned some of the menu workings, but I’m more curious as to the open-ended aspect; can you buy homes again and spend days stocking them with cool loot or a thousand and five watermelons? Can you join all the different guilds without one getting mad at you for joining another? How does crafting work? How will companions work, and can I befriend animals? And so on and so on. Granted, we’ll all know too much soon enough. I am pretty stoked to see what Bethesda has done.

By 11/11/11, I hope to be pretty done with all the major games I currently have in my possession–Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mafia II, and Fallout: New Vegas–as well as those select few titles I’ve yet to purchase. If not, they’ll all just eaten by a dragon. That’s the pox in the realm of Skyrim.

I poor, you poor, we all poor when picking up rupoor

All my life, I’ve been led to believe that rupees hid in bushes, and that slashing at shrubbery was beneficial to both my bank account and ego. We can blame The Legend of Zelda for this, as rupees are the consistent currency throughout the franchise. You want a new shield? Better have some rupees. Interested in a bigger bag for your bomb collection? Pay up. Want someone to warm your bed at night while Zelda is all off getting kidnapped? Um…well, uh…

So there I was, playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for free on my Nintendo 3DS, clearing out some bushes and tall grass in hopes of earning some kaching-kaching when a black-tinted rupee popped out and I picked it up on total basic instinct. Suddenly, four to five of my very own rupees jumped off Link’s body, screaming in pain, and these were red rupees, the ones worth a decent amount. Maybe 20 each, I think, and so we’re looking at losing 100 rupees upon contact. Now, as enemies began swarming, I was scrambling to recollect money I had already picked up before it disappeared. Everyone, meet the rupoor.

Evidently, rupoor showed up in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, a game which I played all the way up to the final dungeon and even took the time to unlock the fishing minigame, but I do not ever recall picking any of those black beasts up. If I did, I surely would’ve cried out in dismay. But in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, your rupee count is pretty important. Well, mostly if you’re playing co-op/against other players. Me? I’m doing the adventure solo, with a second controllable Link, but whether the first Link earns 578 rupees or the second Link earns 47 rupees, it ultimately doesn’t matter. We are one in the same, making the count-off at the end of each level rather silly. If was playing competitively against other Linkers, picking up a rupoor would be devastating.

What I find so fascinating is that, despite now knowing what rupoor does to my moneybag, four out of five times, I still end up picking it up. It’s just a reflex. Slash a bush, grab the item. Usually it’s something good: a health fairy, a green or blue rupee, a power-up. Sometimes I like to charge up the sword and spin in front of a bunch of bushes, collecting items like woah. It’s only now and then something pure evil pops out, but everything is already in motion.

At this point, I’ve completed the first three main levels (and a bit of the lengthy tutorial hub), and now I’m off to Death Mountaintop (?) to fight Vaati. I bet he just loves rupoor. After that, if rumor holds water, there’ll be some other levels to play based on fantastic themes such as 1993’s Link’s Awakening, 1992’s A Link to the Past and the 1987 original Legend of Zelda from the NES. That’s pretty exciting. Hopefully by then I’ll have learned to avoid rupoor, but somehow I doubt that. Feel free to ride my coattails in hopes of picking up some free cash.

Picus Communications employees don’t care about coffee

As a coffee lover, this post is gonna hurt. And contains some slight spoilers about Deus Ex: Human Revolution. But it’s mostly about spilled coffee. Prepare thyself…

After Jensen learns some unsavory things, he has Faridah Malik fly him directly to Montreal, namely the office headquarters of Picus Communications, where he’s hoping to find answers. Unfortunately, there’s no one there to answer his Qs. See, upon sneaking into the building, it’s quickly evident that all of Picus Communications is out to lunch–a really long lunch, that is. Phones are continuously ringing, the floor is littered with papers, chairs are knocked aside, and, most horrifying of all, coffee is spilled across many desktops. I counted at least six or seven battered cups, and there were probably more, but I didn’t examine every cubicle desk or office; some desks had filled coffee cups not knocked over, but the majority of Picus workers definitely whacked their hot drinks across the face before high-tailing it to an emergency exit. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Let’s recreate what happened at Picus Communications. Your name is Zack (male) or Stacy (female). You’re checking emails at work, sipping that delicious java, slowly waking up. Suddenly, without warning, the fire alarm goes off. Despite years of training for fire drills, you panic. Your stomach drops, and you frantically look to the cube to your right. “Zack/Stacy!” your co-worker screams, eyes wide with terror, driblets of sweat snaking down their face. “GET OUT NOW! THERE’S NO TIME FOR COFFEE, GET THE F*CK OUT OF HERE!” And then you made a mad dash for safety, with little to no care of how you placed your coffee cup back down. It totally spilled across your keyboard, but you don’t know that. You keep running, and you never look back. After all, you work for Picus Communications.

I spent a decent amount of time examining these coffee spills. They were all different, and in a game where one basement looks like that other basement and one warehouse looks like that other warehouse, this was appreciated. One spill even trickled down the side of a desk, as if aiming for the waste-bin, desperate to end it all. If this was Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas, I totally would’ve picked up every discarded cup and deposited in the trash–or on someone’s chair, to teach them a lesson.

I really wanted to find some awesome screenshots of these coffee tragedies, but alas, the Internet let me down. And I don’t have software that can record my actual gaming. Shame. But maybe it’s better y’all don’t see what a bunch of weirdos do to their coffee cups upon learning it is time to evacuate. I know I’ll never get those images out of my head.

Achievements of the Week – The Voyage of the Mind Edition

For awhile there, it was looking like there would be no Achievements of the Week update this week. I only got to play the ol’ Xbox 360 for the first time last night, giving Portal‘s advanced test chambers another swing and then moving forward in my second playthrough of Bastion. Otherwise, the only reason the Xbox 360 was turned on during these last seven days were to watch LOST, The Wonder Years, Frasier, and my favorite episode of Parks and Recreation (“The Fight” if you were curious). Not a terrible reason to hit the on button, but I do wish I could fit in more gaming time; alas, I’m losing my mind and slipping into an even deeper depression, making the things that were once easy and likable a little harder to enjoy…

Right. Achievements. Time to write about ’em.

From Bastion…

Mind Voyager (20G): Complete each trip to Who Knows Where.

Just my two cents, but don’t bother going for this during your first playthrough. Chances are, The Kid won’t be a high enough level to survive, nor will his weapons be fully powered, his distillery fully stocked, and his number of lootable health potions increased. All those things are vital to making it back to the Bastion each time. You basically make three trips to Who Knows Where, and each trip consists of 20 rounds of fighting swarms of monsters; after each round is finished, Bastion‘s narrator will give away another tidbit about the world and its characters, providing pertinent background on stuff like the Ura and Zulf.

I beat all three with the War Machete and Scrap Musket combo, utilizing the Final Warning secret skill a lot; the first two were rather easy, but the final one against the Ura was a dang struggle, as those dudes zoom in fast for the kill, often draining The Kid’s health bar strikingly fast. And potions don’t grow on trees, only getting dropped every other Reflection. Also, make sure you’re a pro at rolling.

Altruist (20G): Complete 100 percent of the Vigils in the Memorial.

This isn’t too hard actually, and thankfully many of the completed ones from the first playthrough carry over on New Game+. There are only a few Vigils–challenges, basically–that can be a bit tough. Namely, The Dynasty (Earn first prize in seven Proving Grounds) and The Faith (Complete a trip to Who Knows Where with at least one God activated). Other than that, everything else comes naturally as you progress. Just make sure you do all of them before moving on to the last stage, as that’s the point of no return.

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And that’s it for this week’s AotW. Stay tuned for next week’s edition, which will most certainly feature the remaining two Achievements in Bastion, as I plan on completing this beautiful baby over the weekend. If not, may a new Calamity strike me down.

How’d y’all do this week? Get that Achievement in Rage for horrible texture pop-ins? Slaaaaaaaaaam.

Pushing a button until your fingers fall off is Ayla’s idea of a fun time

Initially, I liked Chrono Trigger‘s Ayla. She’s got one helluva introduction, dropping in all Tarzan-like and beating up a bunch of wicked dinosaurian creatures. And she likes to party. Party hard, that is. Especially when soup is at hand. I mean, I love brontosaurus cock-a-leekie just as much as the next guy, but she really takes the meal to heart. More on that in a moment.

Upon arriving in 65,000,000 BC, you’ll be attacked by the aforementioned beasts. They aren’t too tough, not surprisingly weak to lightning, which is the greatest tip one could heed during their time in the prehistoric days. After Crono and gang get their collective butts saved, Ayla will take them back to Ioka village to speak to the chief and…well, party. Evidently, Ayla knows where this Dreamstone thingy is, but to get that information out of her, Crono must first beat her in a soup-guzzling contest. And that all boils down to doing one action perfectly and repeatedly: pushing a button.

I hate pushing a button repeatedly in rapid succession.

Usually, the first attempt is a failure, as it’s not clear just how fast the button needs to be pressed. To beat Ayla, seems like…pretty fast. That girl can guzzle. I failed my first three attempts to out-guzzle her, and by then, my hands were cramping. One has to remember that I’m playing Chrono Trigger on a Nintendo 3DS, so I’m not just mashing a controller, but an entire system. Had to be careful not to break it. For my fourth try, I rested the 3DS in my lap, turned it sideways, and used my pointer finger to hit the button again and again and again. That did it, but still required a lot of effect, and my hand was already tired at that point. All for soup and a Dreamstone and to wake up the next morning with a soupy hangover to find that all of Crono’s stuff was stolen. Greaaaaat.

Let’s look at some other games that have featured this tormenting gameplay element and their lasting impression on me. Yes, let’s:

Metal Gear Solid

The button-mashing sequence in Metal Gear Solid is one you can fail and continue on with the story. However, there’s a great consequence for failing. Snake gets captured by Liquid Snake and is strapped into a machine that can shock the living skin off him. Ocelet wants some answers, and if Snake doesn’t give them, Meryl will die. But if he speaks and gives in, then all will be fine–so to speak. When being tortured, your options are to press the circle button repeatedly to recover strength or press select to submit to Ocelet’s demands. You will be tortured for a limited period of time, and you must press circle nonstop to survive the torture sequence. You have to live through four intervals, and then you have to take a break to ice your fingers.

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World: The Game

Actually, I didn’t mind the button-mashing in SPVTWTG because it actually felt rightly implemented. Sometimes a group of enemies will suddenly dogpile Scott or Kim (like you’d play as anyone other than them), and to break free you have to mash the attack button with a fury that one sparks when one needs air and just can’t reach it. Same goes for when you want to kick off a super hit combo, mashing X again and again until you are flashing and somewhere in the the high 60s. Still, after a few of these encounters, your thumb does get sore.

God of War

Hydras can only be defeated by button-mashing. It’s true. Look it up. Actually, not even your thumbs are strong enough to pierce their heads on ship-made pikes; I remember having to wedge my PS2 controller against my leg and use a combo of other fingers to get the speed I needed for Kratos to do some killing. There’s also some button-mashing for larger enemies, not just bosses, plus when the going gets rough you’re always rolling around and swinging those chains like a madman. It’s enough to break one’s hand.

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There used to be turbo controllers for the PlayStation 1/PlayStation 2 that could help players get around button-mashing sequences–basically cheat–but those days are gone. Or maybe they aren’t. I don’t know. I’m not big on buying more controllers than I ultimately need, and the stock that comes with the version is generally sufficient. I am just waiting for the day when this mechanic goes away or stays where it belongs, in social games like Mario Party 17, where it’s a race to fill up a balloon with air or something, and to do that you gotta be the fastest at pushing a button.

Nintendo is stealing my ideas

Now, normally, I like to begin each blog post with some kind of image, whether it’s from the game I’m going to be talking about today or somehow related to the topic at hand, and then I write on top of it. Just a couple of words. I usually try to be witty and not repeat whatever hook I use in the blog post’s title. I can’t recall exactly why I decided this was going to be the format of Grinding Down, but it’s worked out, helped make it a little different than other bloggy blogs out there (I hope!), and gives me a chance to play around in Photoshop every day. Also, I love LOLcats. The font I use is called Showcard Gothic, and it’s a nice, thick font which works well for standing out strong on top of videogame screenshots.

I don’t own this process. It is not trademarked by me, and it’s not against the law if anything wants to start doing exactly the same thing I do, using the same style of pictures and fonts and words. I get that. Go, America and Freedom Fries and all that jazz. Still, the scenario that follows has me a bit befuddled…

So, this weekend, I logged onto the Nintendo eShop to add some more funds to my account and see if there was anything worth getting. I downloaded Inchworm Animation, but haven’t gotten much time to fool around with it; seems promising though, with plenty of options for drawing and animating silly doodles. I suspect if I get amazing at the app I’ll have to invest in an SD card reader so I can get all my wonderful creations onto the Interwebz. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins looks like fun, but I can’t remember if I played it back as a wee lad or not–still, I’m kind of tired of getting just the newest (and I use that term loosely) Mario or Zelda title ready for download. There’s so much more available. Gonna keep looking, and as I was perusing the eShop’s storefront, I came across a menu that grouped a bunch of games together under the title of “For Your Bus Ride Home,” with Earthworm Jim getting the limelight. See here:

Sorry about the shoddy photo work, but notice anything odd about that image up there? It certainly looks like something I’d have created for Grinding Down‘s purposes, that’s for sure. Checking my archive, I can confirm I haven’t made an image like this. But if I had, I’d have done just as so. Nice, clean image of Earthworm Jim shooting up some crows, and then a perfectly placed block of text, telling you what this is all gonna be about.

Hey, Nintendo. STOP STEALING MY IDEAS.

Or, at the very least, hire me. I could write words on top of images all day long, and just think of how special your storefront would be under my beck and call. Any Nintendo reps reading this and nodding their heads in agreement can contact me by email via pdabbamondi[at]gmail[dot]com. My rates are cheap, my work is strong, and clearly, we are of the same mindframe. It’s go time!

A tale of two Masamunes

Yesterday was a “stay inside the house under blankets and play videogames” kind of day, but only after Tara and I got some respective work done. She cleaned her studio room a bit, set up the Nintendo Wii, and helped with dishes and laundry. I also helped with laundry, straightened up, made some mediocre mac and cheese for dinner, frantically searched for that freakin’ stereo AV cable to hook up the PlayStation 2, drew some characters from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and worked a bit more on my October challenge of drawing 31 horribly bad horror comics. Busy, but getting stuff done is good. And it all meant that we could reward ourselves with some gaming time come nightfall.

I forgot to mention that earlier in the day I put on a Chrono Cross playlist, and Tara exclaimed that she had to play the game again now. Further proof that Yasunori Mitsuda holds all the power. All he needs to do is slip in some brain-washing message about marching against the government, and down goes the United States.

So, browsing our PS1 memory card collection, we found two save files for Chrono Cross: one for like nine hours, and a second one for about nineteen hours or so. The latter was definitely that one we wanted, but I’d missed out on a lot of story bits so I sat back while Tara ran around as Lynx (as Serge); she had some things to do before heading over to the Dead Sea, such as finding the captain, participating in a monster team battle thingy, and learning how to go down ladders. I flipped open my 3DS to make some progress in Chrono Trigger. Yup. We’re totally dorks like that.

Anyways, in Chrono Trigger, I was making my way up through the Denadoro Mountains, fighting off rather tough Ogans. Hint: use Crono’s Lightning tech! At the peak of the mountain, there’s a cave, and in that cave, there’s a sword. It’s protected by two kids, one named Masa and the other Mune, and Crono and gang will have to fight them twice to earn the right to take this sword. After discovering that it’s nothing but a broken blade, we’re off to Melchior to see if he can fix it. Sure, not a prob–he just needs a Dreamstone, a type of rock that hasn’t been seen in many, many years. Okay, got it. 65,000,000 BC, here we come!

I stopped there, and when I looked up, Tara was making her way into the Isle of the Damned in Chrono Cross, a place that sounds a lot scarier than it really is. Though something scary and evil does reside there. Wanna guess? A sword called Masamune. How freaky is that. Crono just got the broken blade in Chrono Trigger, and Lynx just learned a little history about a sword with the same name in Chrono Cross. It’s like a John Cusack movie, like it was all meant to happen like so. I have no idea if the two swords are canonically connected, or if it is merely a nod to the former game. According to GiantBomb.com, Masamune has appeared in just under twenty games so far. Hmm…could just be a coincidence, too.

I wonder what other odd happenings will pop up the next time we sit down to play two games from the same franchise at once. If we plan accordingly, maybe we can get the end credits of each game to scroll harmoniously. Granted, now I want to go back to my nine hour save file and play more Chrono Cross than Chrono Trigger–I just absolutely love the battle system in that game, and nobody else has come close to matching its beauty.