Formatting

Anyone else have trouble formatting posts in blogger? To me it seems like my last post had a lot of inconsistencies in size, even if it looked fine in the editor.

Spring 2012 Anime First Impressions

Note that all of these are based only on the first one or two episode of the series.

Sankarea - Presentation is quite good. Not quite sure where the plot is going, possibly a romance between a guy and a zombie girl. It will be another episode or so before I really know what's going on.


Zetman - Decent action (a bit violent for some people's tastes). Plot seems like it isn't going to be very good. A bit confusing.


Medaka Box - Very good. Not exactly sure who I would recommend this for, but I can safely say I enjoy it so far. It's about a student council president who is pretty much perfect.


Accel World - I love the music. Has some interesting concepts, though turns out to be shounen.


Acchi Kocchi - Standard moe kind of comedy. Not very interested in this. [Dropped]


Lupin the Third - Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna - So far it's entertaining. Will wait for another episode to fully pass judgement on. (warning, a bit is NSFW)


Tasogare Otome x Amnesia - Has an odd plot, but how good it is very much depends on where the plot actually goes.


Jormungand - Gun action, kind of violent, I enjoy it. If you enjoyed black lagoon, I think you might like this.


Tsuritama - An anime about fishing and... maybe saving the world? So far I find it isn't that impressive, but it might get better.


Hyouka - Seems to be a mystery anime which is down to earth. It has potential, but I can't say for sure or not how good it is until further in the season.


Upotte!! - Cute girls doing cute things, but with a twist. Girls are actually guns... Like, they are guns, just just carrying guns (though they do that too). If you are interested in guns, you might like this.


Shining Hearts - Shiawase no Pan - Feels like an RPG like world, but with almost nothing happening so far. Main character bakes bread. That's... it.

More Quick Anime Reviews

Time for some quick reviews of anime from last season. I'm too lazy to find pictures now, so just look them up at images.google.com if you're interested.

Ano Natsu de Matteru - Pretty good romance with an alien, but there are a few plot points that are a bit... odd.

High School DxD - For the genre, sort of ecchi action, it's one of the best. So its up to you whether or not you think you would like the genre.

Another - Horror anime. Plot is ok. If you like horror anime, it's worth watching, mostly since there isn't too much in this genre already.

Nisemonogatari - Only watch if you've seen Bakemonogatari. It's similar, but with more fanservice. Iff you liked Bakemonogatari, you will probably like this.

Black Rock Shooter - I enjoyed it, though it was confusing. I think that maybe the OVA made a bit more sense, which is really saying something.

Guilty Crown - This has a lot of cliches. It's so over the top with action and... something. It's somewhat akin to Code Geass. It's worth checking out to see if you like it or not.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Plot... not that great. Parts of it were good, but it got less interesting as it approached the end. Basically, it started to get old before it was finished, which isn't very good for a 13 episode series.

Note that these are only the series that I finished from Winter 2011. Here are the ones I didn't finish:
Kill Me Baby - comedy, ok, but not that great. Might eventually finish it.
Inu X Boku Secret Service - romance, once again mediocre. May or may not finish it.
Mouretsu Pirates - the premise is good - space pirates, but the implementation was... so boring, and slow. Almost nothing happened for the first 5 episodes. Don't watch this unless you've already seen everything else.
Rinne no Lagrange - Mecha anime. Characters are ok, though sometimes annoying. Wasn't horrible, but it didn't really have enough to it.

Nintendo's E3 conference

Nintendo started with an orchestra going through tons of Zelda music. Quite a good beginning.

They announced some pretty good free stuff: 4 swords for the DSi, Excite Bike for the 3DS, and Pokedex (not exactly sure what it is) for the 3DS.

We got a quick look at a good amount of 3DS games, including a Mario game, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion 2, and Starfox, among others.  The best part, during the Starfox clip, "Do a barrel roll" was played.  My interest in the 3DS has recently very much increased.  Also, Cave Story 3D looks awesome. I hope it's more than just the same game with a graphical upgrade, and if it is, then I certainly want it.

Finally, Nintendo unveiled their new controller/console, the Wii U.  Yes, Wii U as in the sound a police car makes, or in horribly confusing sentences like: "Would you like to see my Mii on your Wii U?" (I'd recommend saying that out loud).  The reason why I wrote "controller/console" is because it was referred as both during the conference (mostly controller by Nintendo, though once Miyamoto said console, and console by other developers).

So, what is the Wii U?  It's basically another controller, with a screen in it.  It looks sort of like the Gamecube or Sega Dreamcast mods that put the entire system in a controller.  It has 2 joysticks, various buttons, a gyroscope sensor, and the screen is a touch screen.  It connects to the console, and they plan on having various types of games that you play on the tv and with the controller: it was shown that you could play on the tv, and then switch to the screen in the controller.  Also, it will allow for some multiplayer "asymmetrical gameplay."  Also, a new Super Smash Brothers game has been confirmed for the 3DS and the Wii U.

Basically, the Wii U seems a little gimmicky right now, but it has potential.  This is sort of how I felt about the 3DS last year, and I'm now wanting it a bit more, so it could work out.  Overall, Nintendo has a pretty good E3, especially if the Wii U turns out good.


Edit: I think the Wii U also comes with a new console, but it wasn't very clear during the conference, so I made my description somewhat ambiguous by saying 'console' and 'tv' instead of naming anything specific.

Portal 2 Levels

So, I've been making some Portal 2 levels - specifically 2 levels so far... one of which has both a coop and single player version.  They aren't very polished, and could use some tweaking of the textures, but I like them, and so far they have had good feedback (not sure how much of it was just being polite though).

So, reader(s) that have Portal 2, send me a message to test my levels if you haven't already, and if you have interest.

Also, for personal reference, the level files go into the folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2\maps
or C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2\maps for 32 bit systems.


Also, to anyone else with interest in making levels, I'd be glad to help with the very small amount of knowledge that I have gained in the subject.

Hacker Typer

As many of you have seen by now, this is hilarious and awesome: http://hackertyper.net/
I've been working on an AutoHotKey version of it so that it could work in any program (on windows).
I'm basically done, but it unfortunately does not have the ability to hit backspace, so some programs which auto-indent won't quite work with it.  Other than that, it's incredibly fun.
This was designed specifically for my computer and it would require some tweaking to work on other machines, but if you're interested feel free to take a look at it: HackerType.ahk

A freaky dream

So, I took a nap in csug lounge.  I had a dream while I was sleeping.  I dreamed about taking a nap in csug lounge.

In the dream, I was in the exact same place, though I was lying in a different position (on my back instead of curled up in a ball).  Anyways, in the dream there were people in the room - around 4 or 5 of them.  I was listening in on the conversations they were having, as in the dream I wasn't completely asleep - more like dozing off.  Then I realized my watch alarm was going to go off soon, and I didn't really want to bother everyone there, but I was too tired to really do anything about it, so I just let it go off.  Then the alarm went off and I opened my eyes, and no one was there.

As I awoke into reality, because of the similarity to the dream and reality, it didn't feel like waking up, it felt as if everyone just disappeared and nothing else changed, since in real life the room was empty.  It was freaky, and kind of cool.  At the very least, it was an interesting and entertaining experience.