No More IE6

07/19/08 8:23 am

After about 5 years with my previous computer, I've recently invested in a shiny new PC that I am quite pleased with. :3 However, while my old computer had Windows XP, and could therefore run the convenient Multiple IEs program that I used to test my site in IE6, my new computer has Vista, which apparently cannot run a standalone version of IE6 so easily. Because of that, and the fact that I virulently hate IE6 anyway, I am officially discontinuing support for it on my website. This doesn't mean IE6 users won't be able to access the site, but that I won't make any attempt to fix things that are only broken in IE6.

If you are still using IE6 - as my traffic logs report that approximately 26% of my visitors are - please stop. IE6 is slow, very insecure, and is the bane of web developers because of its numerous bugs that will never be fixed. It wastes my time on a regular basis when I have to find non-standard solutions to support this archaic browser that should be exterminated, not coddled.

If you need a new browser, I highly suggest the latest version of Firefox. Here's a good list of reasons why. Or if you prefer to stick with MS products, just get IE7.

Just get rid of IE6, okay? I am nothing but serious when I say that the internet would be better off without it.

Filed under: Announcements  Site Related  

Comments (0)

Crisis Core Wrap Up

07/13/08 9:40 am

Crisis Core has been an interesting little game. The battle experience is not exactly a highlight - combat tends toward button mashing, and the DMW roulette is an odd feature offering you no control and an over-abundance of power ups. Special attack animations are unskippable, and often pop up at unnecessary times - like when a single plain hit would've ended the battle instead. Missions - sidequests with item rewards - are repetitive and tedious, but offer some worthwhile prizes and are good for playing with limited time on your hands. Materia Fusion is a decent idea, but you'll likely need a guide to get anything cool out of it. And I don't think I know any game where receiving email from other characters doesn't get annoying.

The story and new characters feel largely unnecessary too. Since the game's a prequel, we know who to pay attention to, and all others are pretty much throw-aways. The main antagonist - Genesis - is particularly annoying in that nearly every line of his dialogue is a recitation of lines from a hackneyed play that you will hear about over and over and over again. Unless they're going to retcon the whole series (and I suppose they could), I just couldn't care about these new characters who I knew had no relevance to the series beyond this one game.

So what makes Crisis Core worth playing then? The best parts of this game are where it overlaps with its original; namely, it's characters - Zack, Aeris, Sephiroth and Cloud - and events, like the Nibelheim incident and all that follows it. As if it's not bad enough that you already know Zack is doomed, the ending is so well done - with both FMVs and battles as story telling - as to make the event more poignant than ever before. I think it may have cemented Zack as the most tragic character of the series (yes, even more so than Aeris). That's really what makes Crisis Core worth the effort.

Filed under: Games  Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core  Opinion  

Comments (0)

Happy 4th Ramblings

07/04/08 11:39 am

Happy 4th of July, to those of you who celebrate it. Nothing to post today but some random thoughts from the last few days.

Bookstores. On two separate visits, we've noticed a certain breed of person... Usually it's a teenager, usually reading a manga, usually while seated smack in the middle of a narrow aisle between bookshelves. While we spend awhile finding the book we want, this person remains stationary, even while other customers attempt to go around him (this person is also usually male). I suppose the responsibility of dealing with this person falls upon the bookstore staff, but it's awfully rude all the same.

Gaming. I've just started up Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, which is the first game I've played on a PSP actually. While the visuals are lovely, the battle system feels flawed, at best. There's not much challenge - you can mash X to beat most enemies - and the roulette-like DMW thing dampens the difficulty even further by bestowing numerous power-ups and special attacks throughout the battles. It also feels odd that you have absolutely no control over the DMW wheels - they just spin and stop whenever they please. The game's story and dialogue also feel rather silly, what with everyone quoting poetry or proverbs and sprouting random wings. And how weird is it to see Sephiroth acting normal? Still fun though, and Zack is a likeable lead.

Website. Hopefully some site improvements will be coming along soon, if I can spare some time to work on them. I know the skin menu on the right is a bit broken in Firefox 3 (which only a small percentage of you are using... and I thank you), but I'm probably going to leave it that way for now.

Filed under: Games  Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core  Life  Opinion  Site Related  

Comments (0)

A Few Things

06/14/08 1:19 pm

First we'll talk skins, since that's probably what most of you here are interested in. The skin seen below is in progress... and the balance slider has it in for me. I can't seem to find any functionality in Winamp's MAKI language that'll let me control the pan value... so I can't have it mimic the volume slider and update the animated layer frame as it goes... If anyone knows better, let me know. Otherwise I'll probably have to redo that area (put something different there, or change the slider design).

Second, most of my day at work yesterday was wasted when we had to clean up the database after an SQL injection attack inserted a few thousand lines linking to a malicious Javascript file. Apparently hundreds of sites running MSSQL were hit around the same time. Ugh.

Finally, a bit of anime. I haven't been watching much lately for two key reasons. One is that I have simply chosen to spend my limited free time on other activities (most prominently, more gaming), but the other is that there hasn't been much to trumpet in recent series, it seems. But lately we've been starved for some short, enjoyable video content to watch with meals or while relaxing. So we picked out two to try: Soul Eater and Baccano.

Soul Eater, with 51 supposed episodes, may be pushing the envelope on my tolerance for long series (I know I've watched hundreds of One Piece, Inuyasha and Naruto episodes, but if anything they prove my point: 50 episodes is the approximate maximum for consistently decent quality, I think), but it has been enjoyable thus far. The characters and plot are kinda cookie-cutter: students at shinigami academy - including the archetypical bookworm, headstrong boy, loudmouth, pushover, and perfectionist - must fight together as partners against various evil things and collect souls to become the big cheese. *shrug* Nothing really to complain about, just nothing stellar about it either, I guess.

Baccano, however, I am crazy for. The gore level was a bit higher than my usual taste, but the show's about mafia guys, assassins and otherwise shady characters... so it's not out of place. The story is told non-chronologically, mostly jumping around between a few years in the 1930s, and focusing on suspenseful incidents that intertwine its characters. This manner of presentation allows for numerous cliff-hangers - once you start watching, it's hard to turn it off. The characters are the main driving force of the story though, and I found myself endeared to and interested in all of them (even if they seriously creeped me out at times as well). The music is also catchy - try the opening for a taste.

And that's all for now. Hopefully the aforementioned skin will be done within a day or so...

Filed under: Anime  Life  Opinion  Previews  Skins  

Comments (0)

Gaming: The World Ends With You

06/07/08 11:01 am

Rirath and I recently signed up for GameFly, so I may be musing about random games more often. Today's entry is about the Nintendo DS JRPG, The World Ends With You (originally "Subarashii Kono Sekai" in Japanese, but since that translates to "it's a wonderful world," potential copyright issues apparently prevented it from being released under that title in English).

In the game, you play as Neku Sakuraba, a misanthropic teen who finds himself in an alternate reality Shibuya where he must complete daily objectives to stay alive amidst something called a "Reaper's Game." He meets other "players" trapped in the game, as well as enemies called Noise, and the reapers themselves.

The World Ends With You sets itself apart from so many DS games with its style and depth. Derived from their urban setting, characters and enemies sport trendy fashions or graffiti-like tattoos. The music throughout the game is lyrical, and likewise adds to the atmosphere by sticking mostly to pop and rap, as well as interchanging between English and Japanese language versions of the songs.

The battle system is refreshingly unique, as you fight enemies with a partner on both of the DS' screens at once - on the bottom screen with your stylus, and the top screen with the D-pad. This is certainly not without its flaws though, as it's somewhat difficult to divide your attention between the two. Fortunately they've accounted for this in two ways, the first of which is that your partner will always have an attack that consists of simply pressing the same button several times, and also that you can choose to ignore your partner and s/he'll be auto-controlled instead.

The abilities you wield in battles are decided by pins - you can wear between one and six pins, each one with a power that's activated by a stylus motion (or a shout into your DS' mic). There are hundreds of pins to choose from, though there's a quite smaller range of stylus actions between them; this can get annoying if you pick two or more pins with the same or similar activation methods and end up using the wrong attack.

Trends will also affect your battles - both pins and clothing are associated with brands, and the more popular the brand in a given area, the more powerful the items of that brand will be. While this adds another layer of depth, I found myself ignoring it more often than not. The areas you move between are too small to be concerned with changing all your pins and clothes every few minutes. You can also influence which brand is popular by wearing that brand's items, but locking oneself into a single brand seems more hindering than beneficial.

The game has its downsides too, of course. Gameplay is very linear, to the point where I occasionally felt rushed by the story when I would've liked to wander around a bit. Long chunks of dialog with no option skip will also bog you down sometimes. It's hard to organize your pins and it gets more cumbersome to find the one you want as your collection grows; why couldn't there have been some sorting options (by brand, by level, by effect, etc.)? Also, there's no map. Okay, technically there is, but it only shows you the fashion trends for each area, not the names of the areas... making it useless as a map.

Overall it's an entertaining and fun game though. ... Expect a skin of it.

Filed under: Games  The World Ends With You  Opinion  

Comments (0)

Thoughts on Mario Kart Wii

05/11/08 10:03 am

Yes I know, I haven't updated in over a month. I'm [slowly] working on a piece of art in Illustrator, at which I'm still something of a newb... but I quite like the style of art you can make with it, so I'm tryin'. There's still a Shakugan no Shana skin pending, and possibly a new Okami one too. I've also gotten a lot of Google searches for "Smash Bros Brawl skin," so I might give that a shot as well. In the meantime, let's talk about...

Mario Kart Wii

It's not bad, but it's not terribly impressive either. First off, the Wii Wheel? If you've any interest in precision control, you'll dump it. This was somewhat surprising to me, since the Wiimote controls in certain levels of Mario Galaxy were markedly sensitive. But, oh well, it's a gimmick.

Moving on to gameplay... Having gotten the game with Rirath, we tried out the multiplayer modes first. From the start, about half of the total tracks are missing, and must be unlocked through single player mode only. This was kind of disappointing - not that the content had to be unlocked, but that there's no means of unlocking it through multiplayer. The concept of "Cups" is somewhat borked in multiplayer, since you can pick and choose tracks and the order you want to play them in; it's really just four separate races in an arbitrary grouping. Battle mode has suffered most from retooling: you can no longer play one-on-one, but must play in teams with CPUs, and when you lose your balloons, you simply respawn with a new set, as the game keeps a running tally of cumulative hits for each team. I've read the argument that this was done to facilitate a better WiFi battle experience, and maybe so, but why must the offline battles follow the same rules?

The game's AI has also been improved, which at times is frustratingly merciless, like when you get bombarded by numerous items in succession. In fact, items in general feel a bit broken - if you're in back, you can always count on a star or a bullet bill to propel you to the front, and if you're in first, it's only a matter of time before a blue shell is upon you. As such, the first two laps of the race are essentially meaningless - you can be in last place going into the final lap and easily score 1st with items. It's more to your detriment to hold onto first position, as you'll simply get pounded down again and again.

So those are the highlights of what's broken in the game, how about what's good? The visuals and music are both laudable, and it's fun to see some of the series' previous tracks renewed in Wii-goodness. The new tracks are well-designed too. The addition of bikes provides more depth when choosing your vehicle, with varied abilities like drifting, drafting and tricks under consideration. I've yet to try the online play, but people say that's fun too. :P

All in all, it's a good game, but not a great game. Which is a shame after seeing such wonderful first-party franchise titles like Brawl and Mario Galaxy.

Filed under: Games  Mario Kart Wii  Opinion  

Comments (1)

Cleaning Up the URLs

04/08/08 10:45 am

I have been tinkering with the site's .htaccess directives to change the URLs from variable-laden to "clean" versions, because it's user and search engine friendly. This might cause some links to go AWOL however, since well-defined redirection rules can be tricky business. If you find a link that's not taking you where you expect it to, please email me (or leave a comment on this post) with the full URL you used. Don't tell me about the links in the RSS feed though - I know about those already.

Filed under: Site Related  Technical  

Comments (2)