Dialogue

I'm just sitting here, listening to Capital Cities, and I'm trying to figure out how to write dialogue. I think back to what Stephen King said about one of my favorite authors H. P. Lovecraft. King wrote that while Lovecraft was a master of the macabre, he was a terrible dialogue writer. It probably didn't help that Lovecraft was a total shut in...at least from what I remember. I haven't read about him for years. Actually, the last thing I remember reading about him was that his mother ended up in an asylum and something about how he read books on Greek gods and...offered...sacrifice...to them...I hope I read that wrong. I remember being only mildly interested. But back to my point, I'm going to make an effort to learn about dialogue for the next few months or so and see where that gets me. When I write dialogue I feel like someone who has nail the nails into the roof but only brought wrenches. I have a general idea of what to do, I just don't have the right tools. I'm going to attempt to remedy this as soon as possible. Wish me luck!

Prefered Profession

I think I have an idea of what could be an...interesting way to make a living. I would ask people to give me a general idea that they have for a story but don't have the time to write it. I'll write, they pay me and we split he profits. I wonder if it's already a job. I'd obviously have to know a lot of people and have a great reputation.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion: A Glitched Game

I just finished a half hour of Oblivion, a game I haven't touched in years and for good reason. I hate Oblivion! I hate hate hate hate it. Why? Let me go back and tell you a tale.
About a year before Skyrim came out, I was talking with a Gamestop employee down in Easton. He asked me if I would like to preorder Skyrim. I said I didn't know anything about the Elder Scrolls, I was more interested in the developer's, Bethesda, other works: Fallout 3. He told me the Elder Scrolls were similar to the Fallout games. He claimed that the Elder Scroll games boasted large worlds filled with treasure, enemies and adventure. I was immediately excited by his statement. Another world like Fallout? I had to get my hands on Skyrim. The next day I preordered Skyrim at a local Gamestop and started my search for the previous entries in the series. I have a policy, I don't play the newest game unless I get my hands on the older games. This only applies if I can get my hands on the previous ones, obviously I didn't get the previous Fallout games. In any case, after weeks of searching, I finally found a copy of Oblivion for the PS3. I paid $40 and headed home to start a new series.
The first thing I noticed about Oblivion was that the graphics were subpar compared to Fallout 3, but I had expected this. Oblivion was several years older, this was the case with all the older games I had bought. The second thing I noticed was that Oblivion was a hack and slash game. Swords and bows replaced guns and grenades. The third thing was the landscape. A lush land filled with forests and ruins replaced a barren, radiated wasteland.
Unfortunately, that is where the niceties end, now I'm going to rip into this game. The first time I created a stealth character, to my ire, I am more of a brawling character. So making a stealth character when I dive head-first into a fight isn't a good idea. Today I'm have a bit more strategy but back then I sucked. I started the game over and created a fighting character. Everything was going smoothly until I got bitten by a vampire. Guess what happens when you get bitten by a vampire. All of a sudden, people started to avoid me or scream at me. I couldn't walk in daylight which cut down on my travel ability. Thankfully, a quest appeared that would let me cure my disease. I headed to an old lady's house and she told me how to cure my disease. She told me I needed the ashes of a powerful vampire, garlic which took me forever to find (I didn't know houses had garlic), blood grass which only grows in dangerous areas, and my "favorite," nightshade, a plant that haunts me to this day.
I spent hours trying to find this plant, I had no clue where it grew or what it looked like. After hours of exploration, I threw up my hands and looked up the location of the elusive flower. At last, I found the flower...in the exact opposite direction I was going. Now I knew where the flower was but I was still a vampire. I had to hide in caves until the sun went away. Even when I found the plant I had frustrations. The game randomly selects whether or not you will succeed or fail in harvesting the plant. After a frustrating experience in finding the flower, I headed back to the old lady's home for the next ingredient only to be greeted with a glitch. The stupid game wouldn't let me continue my quest. I looked up the quest online and found that this was a common glitch found in the game. I decided to call Bethesda and see if they could help me. They said there was nothing they could do.
Now that really grinds my gears, why release a game with such a horrible glitch in it??? I could only do one thing, I deleted my character. Hours of work gone in seconds. And since then I have never touched Oblivion until today. I still bought Skyrim and was extremely pleased with it. I recently finished the game. I'm actually filled with a bit of melancholy. I don't know what to play next, I think I want to play another long game, like Grand Theft Auto or something. Something rich in story and gameplay.

Stephen King's Needful Things

I just finished another LONG book in Stephen King's collection of works. Needful Things is quite an interesting read and was going to be on the next large post on my blog. I was going to compare it to another of Stephen King's work called The Tommyknockers  and compare the two works and their similarities but I'll being putting that off for a little while. My favorite parts are when the people of Castle Rock have a showdown with their supposed enemy. If you don't know the story, the townsfolk are told to play a prank on someone they barely know in exchange for receiving the object of their desire whether it be a special game, a rare card, or something of value. The pranks cause the victims to suspect the culprit is someone that they are currently...at ends with. As the story progresses, the people begin to fight and even kill each other in anger over these seemingly harmless pranks.
I enjoyed reading Stephen King's final tale about the enigmatic town of Castle Rock. It will most likely remain the final story since half the town is either dead or blown up. When Stephen King wants to end the story about a place, he doesn't mess around.
Anyway, in comparison to the Fraser Heston movie, the book has quite a few differences. There's more storylines that intertwine, the main villain is more menacing and the people actually die. I mean when a kid puts a gun up to his head and pulls the trigger, he doesn't end up in the hospital, he ends up in the morgue. And I know I sound morbid but that's what makes Stephen King's works so haunting, even a kid isn't safe.
Clearly Needful Things should've been a TV show instead of a movie, and with big shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, and with Stephen King's other works being remade, like Carrie, now is definitely the time.

Nothing

Not much to say today, didn't even start my next paper. I just hung out, and played Super Monkey Ball 2 for the Gamecube, I'm not entirely proud of that last fact...

Pikmin review

150 views? Fantastic! Anyway, today I finished Pikmin for the Nintendo Gamecube and let me tell you, it's a fantastic game! You play Olimar, an astronaut from another planet the size of a quarter who lands on, what I assume to be earth, a distant planet. He discovers Pikmin, plant like creatures that can defend him from enemies and carry his broken ship parts back to the ship. Olimar has 30 days to find all 30 of his ship's parts before he dies from the planet's oxygen.

Everyday, Olimar must collect Pikmin by plucking them from the ground or gathering solid nectar or dead enemies to the onion to make more Pikmin. The onion, which looks nothing like an onion to me, is where the Pikmin are stored throughout the night. Pikmin die very easily, only by ganging up on bigger enemies can the Pikmin be effective. Olimar has to toss them at enemies. It's fun to watch the Pikmin wail on an enemy in large groups. Watching an enemy fall with dozens of Pikmin crawling all over him is very satisfying.

The gameplay is simple, all I have to do is toss the Pikmin at an item or an enemy and they do the rest. It's fascinating the watch the Pikmin carry an item or a dead enemy. It's like watching ants carry away the carcass of a larger creature. The land is beautiful, the enemies are cute and innovative, and the puzzles are a little tricky but once you figure them out you have that "aha!" moment.

There are some flaws I should mentions. One of my initial problems was the day and night sequence. I hate timers, I hate the pressure. Each day you have to collect items, ship parts, and new Pikmin before the sun goes down. If you don't, anything left out at night will disappear. The game makes a point of this by showing what happens to Pikmin you leave behind. Watching the Pikmin you leave behind actually makes you feel sad for them despite a lack of a story or personal interaction with the Pikmin is a statement to the game's power. It's both sad and understandable, nature is cruel. At first I was upset with the time limit but once I realized how easy the game was I quickly realized I had plenty of time. I actually finished the game with three days left, not bad for my first time.

The biggest problem I had with Pikmin is the Pikmin that get left behind easily. The game has some sharp corners that can trap Pikmin. In fact, that's the reason I saw the Pikmin get eaten at night, I lost track of them.

My last problem is with the music at the end. There's this great song that's supposed to be played but I didn't get to hear it. I don't know if its because I got the good ending, I know there are supposed to be several endings but the song really meant a lot to me and it would've been nice if I could have heard it.

Here's link if you want to hear it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL2ePovKMtg

All and all, I thoroughly enjoyed  this game despite how short it was. I may be behind in the series a bit, the third one is to come out in the summer, but I will definitely keep an eye on this series.

More of what's wrong with Skyrim

- I hate the upgradable weapons system. The only time you can actually see a difference in a weapon when you upgrade them is when you put an enchantment on it. Basically there are certain powers you can put on your weapons in Skyrim like add fire damage so when you hit an enemy they will burn or absorb health so that you get some energy when you hit an enemy. But all you see is a red, green, or blue outline around the weapon. And when you sharpen the weapon or make the armor stronger it doesn't change at all. Yeah my armor is now better but it should at least look cooler or something. When I go to the menu to look at my weapon I see the word "fine" or "epic" next to the item, indicating that it's been improved. It doesn't look any different. Oh, and I don't do the improvements myself, I just push a button and "bam" its improved. I feel like I accomplished so much...

- I hate the quick time kills. When you weaken an enemy enough or perform a sneak attack you get to see your character enact a special move to finish the enemy like a beheading or a thrust into the gut. But there's like five events and they get old really fast. It doesn't help when glitches right through my ally whose also attacking the enemy when I finish them.