rionaleonhart | Recent Entries

DEAR MASS EFFECT 2: WHY AM I NOT ABLE TO INVERT THE X AXIS

SERIOUSLY, WHY

No, really, this game allows you to choose the sex of the main character and customise his or her appearance to a considerable degree and alter your armour and choose which skills to improve when you level up, options options everywhere, and yet they couldn't include an option for that handful of weirdos who get confused when moving the control stick left doesn't move the camera right? I have enough trouble aiming even when the camera does what I'm expecting it to!

Other thoughts on Mass Effect 2 (I've only played about an hour): Jacob seems a nice guy. I hope he's not secretly evil. Miranda doesn't seem nice, but I'm sort of intrigued by her anyway. I'm really bad at shooting things, which I'd like to claim is entirely because of the lack of X-inversion but which is probably largely because I'm just really bad at shooting things.

I don't always go for the female-protagonist option when it's offered in games - I'm always a boy in Pokémon, for example - but I'm playing as a female Shepard because I think Commander Shepard as a concept is fundamentally more interesting when she's female; the male Shepard is something we've seen a thousand times before. I don't think I'd have considered picking up this game had female Shepard not been an option, in fact. My Shepard has red hair and grey eyes and I'm inexplicably really pleased to see her on the screen, even though I didn't actually tweak her that much. Look at her asking questions and making expressions and shooting things, or at least shooting hopelessly in the general direction of things whilst my teammates do the actual work! She's mine! I made that!

As always in games with morality systems, I'm being really nice to everyone, to such an extent that Miranda told me outright she wasn't looking for a friend. I feel like Pinkie Pie. Noooo, someone doesn't want to be my friend! BE MY FRIEND, MIRANDA. EVERYONE HAS TO BE MY FRIEND. I DON'T CARE HOW SHIFTY YOUR ORGANISATION IS.

Change-of-subject time: have you been feeling too productive recently? ALLOW ME TO FIX THAT FOR YOU: have a link to Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4, a horrendously addictive rhythm-action game. It's essentially Guitar Hero for computer keyboards, and it is likely to destroy my career. Enjoy!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/331691.html

This is just a load of nostalgic rambling about the Final Fantasy series; don't mind me.

I was just absently thinking about Final Fantasy VIII, and I remembered how incredibly freaked out I was by the first Laguna dream. I honestly feared something had gone wrong with the game somehow. I refused to save when I was playing as Laguna, because I really liked Squall and I was afraid that I might never go back to being him. (Later, I fell completely in love with Laguna, but at the time I was most distressed.)

Final Fantasy VIII was my first Final Fantasy game. I was thirteen. I went into a GAME, picked up a box in the 'Preowned' section, looked at the title, thought 'hmmm, I vaguely recall hearing good things about this series in a magazine somewhere' and bought it. I knew literally nothing about Final Fantasy. I didn't even know what genre it was. Even had I known, it probably wouldn't have meant anything to me; I don't think I knew what 'RPG' meant at the time, although I had played Pokémon Red.

The curious thing is this: the box I picked up wasn't a Final Fantasy VIII box. It was a Final Fantasy VII box. It didn't even have enough holders for Final Fantasy VIII's four discs. But the man behind the counter must have put a copy of Final Fantasy VIII in by mistake.

I didn't realise what had happened until disc two, when I went on the Internet to find out why I'd died when D-District Prison had drilled into the ground (IT WAS A CUTSCENE, I DIDN'T KNOW I COULD MOVE). 'Why do all these sites keep saying they're about Final Fantasy VIII? Squall is in Final Fantasy VII!' I still remember the 'hang on, maybe...' realisation and going to check the number on the actual discs. IT'S BEEN VIII ALL ALONG, MY WORLD HAS BEEN TURNED UPSIDE-DOWN.

My world was also rather turned upside-down when I realised that pressing R1 to enhance damage on attacking only worked with Squall and Seifer, as it represented firing the gunblade. For years I had been pressing R1 whenever anyone attacked, assuming I just hadn't worked out the timing for anyone but Squall. The problem was that of course occasionally someone would get a critical hit, and so I'd assumed on those occasions that I'd managed to press R1 at the correct moment for once. I simply could not work out why I was so bad at timing my R1 presses for non-Squall characters. I laboured under this misconception for at least seven years.

I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out had I actually received the correct game. This was very early in my videogame-playing career, and Final Fantasy VII is quite far down my personal ranking of the games in the series (it's beaten by VI, VIII, IX, X, XII and XIII, in fact; my enjoyment of VII was seriously hampered by its poor translation). Would I have become a Final Fantasy fan had I started with VII? Would I have become a gamer at all?

Perhaps I would have fallen in love with VII had I played it first. I suppose I'll never know. I do think that VIII was the perfect Final Fantasy game to hook me, though, because I identified so strongly with Squall. Even though I had absolutely no idea how to play (I was capable of junctioning GFs, at least, but I had no idea what junctioning magic did and ended up using GFs over and over again to get through every fight), I persisted, because I really cared about the characters.

I rather hope Final Fantasy VII is remade at some point with a better translation; I'd be interested to see what I think of it without that barrier. I don't want VIII to be remade because I'm too invested in the characters already and the voices will probably be wrong, and I don't want IX to be remade because IX is frankly perfect as it is, but I really would like a VII remake, because I think it has so much room for improvement.

Wow, I have absolutely no idea what the point of this entry is. In any case, what was your first Final Fantasy game? Non-Final Fantasy stories of videogame nostalgia are also welcome. (Also - and this isn't related to the entry at all - would you recommend Mass Effect 2? I've been vaguely wondering whether I should pick it up at some point.)

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/331091.html

ATTENTION ALL:

ruuger is holding a friendship-focused comment ficathon for Valentine's Day! I think this is an excellent idea and encourage you all to write and prompt.

And now for more Final Fantasy XIII-2 rambling!

( Final Fantasy XIII-2: spoilers up to the first time you visit Academia. )

Please do prompt friendship-fic! (And link to the entry yourself, if you'd like.) I'm hovering around there at the moment, hoping that something wakes up my writing drive.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/330771.html

Here is the first instalment of the answers to the character-number questions! You can still ask questions if you like, but you'd better ask them before reading these; the entry is over here.

Fandoms represented: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Peep Show, Phineas and Ferb, Red Dead Redemption, Portal, Uncharted, The Mentalist. Come to think of it, I think all of these are fandoms that only a handful of people on my flist are into. Whoops. Still, I hope you enjoy these!

( In which there are terrible podcast ideas and strange gods, and the fact that robots don't have lips somehow becomes a problem multiple times. )

There are more answers to come, but I think that's enough for today.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/330570.html

More Final Fantasy XIII-2! This entry is mostly about the Sunleth Waterscape 300 AF but also mentions the Yaschas Massif 1X AF.

( Final Fantasy XIII-2: the Sunleth Waterscape. )

I'm working on those character-number questions, but feel free to keep asking! May end up posting them in instalments. Some of the combinations are seriously alarming.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/330283.html

A couple of people on my flist have been doing this meme recently, and it's reminded me of what tremendous fun it is. Here we go!

1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment. (That way you're not leading the questions asked to fit the characters.)

2) Ask your flist to post questions in the comments.

For example:

'One, Nine and Fifteen move in together. Is this a really bad idea?'
'Under what circumstances might Five and Seven fall in love?'
'What would Two experience in Silent Hill?'
'What Pokémon would Eight have?'
'Write a drabble in which Three and Eleven FIGHT CRIME.' (...possibly not technically a question.)

3) After your flist has asked enough questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.

Ask as many questions as you'd like!

(Oh noooo I took ages composing a list I was happy with and just now I've thought of someone else I want on there. I knew this would happen! All right, I suppose I'll reshuffle it a little. There we go.)

(Unrelatedly, this ficmeme - devoted entirely to pairing characters up with themselves or with other characters played by the same actor - may be of interest to some of you.)

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/330067.html

More thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII-2! I've finished the Bresha Ruins and moved on to the Yaschas Massif.

( Final Fantasy XIII-2 notes: Bresha and part of the Yaschas Massif. )

This game is actually really addictive.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is now in my possession! I'm not yet at the ending on my XIII replay, but I thought I'd load my post-game save and play through the end again before I began the sequel. WILD SOBBING.

Vanille is a really interesting character; it's as if someone took the 'perky girl' RPG stereotype, took a long, hard look at it and went, 'Okay, the world is in serious danger of ending; why are you so happy?' I don't think I'll ever be able to view characters from that particular mould in quite the same way again.

Regarding XIII-2: I've only played the prologue so far. Here are my (non-spoilery) thoughts:

- Lightning is awesome.

- I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

And since writing the above I've played a little more! My disjointed musings so far are under the cut. I've only just acquired the first Artefact, so I haven't really got very far.

( Final Fantasy XIII-2, not-very-spoilery thoughts from the first two hours. )

Are any of you playing this game? Planning to play it? How are you finding it so far?

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/329701.html

Having seen 'Read It and Weep', the latest My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode, I really want people to write the self-insert Rainbow Dash/Daring-Do fanfiction that Rainbow Dash is no doubt scribbling enthusiastically right now. It wouldn't be good, but it would be hilarious and adorable. And it could include reviews from the other ponies! And Rainbow Dash's responses to those reviews! NOBODY CARES ABOUT SPELLING, TWILIGHT.

Rainbow Dash is so conflicted whenever awesome things need to be done in her fanfiction; for example, who should awesomely backflip over the manticore and hit the release lever for the trapdoor conveniently located beneath the manticore's feet? On the one hoof, Daring-Do is awesome and Rainbow Dash doesn't want to give the impression that Daring isn't awesome by doing all the awesome things herself. On the other, Rainbow Dash wants to do all the awesome things.

I would also quite like to see fanfiction in which Nathan Drake and Daring-Do go after the same treasure. They have a lot in common, which is unsurprising as they both seem to be inspired by Indiana Jones. Daring's cutie mark caused me great amusement, because I had previously seen this ponified Uncharted fanart. I wouldn't be surprised, frankly, to find out that the human Nate actually did have the points of the compass tattooed on his arse.

Elena is, of course, also invited. 'So... remind me why we're competing with a talking pony version of you?'

If you move the analogue stick rapidly in circles on Final Fantasy XIII, the character you're controlling gets pissed off with you. They'll roll their eyes and facepalm, or wave their hand as if swatting away a fly. It's a nice touch, if a little fourth-wall unfriendly. I know I wasn't the only one who made the characters run around in endless circles on Final Fantasy VIII; finally the characters themselves have caught on.

Also, I'd forgotten how depressing Palumpolum was. I'm trying to help you guys! Why do you all hate me so much? Well, all right, you hate me because you think I'm here to kill you horribly, fair enough.

XIII-2 has now been released, and I'm hoping to have in my possession within the next few days! I have no idea what to expect from this game (beside, you know, the world's silliest chocobo theme), but I'm itching to play it.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/329335.html

Hello, everyone! Here is a pretty great My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic-style pony creator. I propose that we all create pony versions of our favourite fictional characters and then post them in the comments here.

(There is an option for importing a cutie mark image on the creator, but it resizes images oddly, so you may find it easier to add the mark yourself in an image editing program.)

To kick things off:

Now greatly alarmed, I cast about in search of Holmes, for I felt certain that my friend would be better able to explain this strange transformation than I.

I found him standing upon a precipice and looking down upon the town below, or I thought it must be him, for never had a beast been so alike in stance and mien to Sherlock Holmes. "Holmes!" I exclaimed, "what an extraordinary occurrence! what an impossibility! Have you any idea what has happened to us?"

"I have," said Holmes (for of course it was he). I was most relieved to hear it, although I had little doubted that he would know. If he knew what had brought about this change, I hoped he would also have some idea of what steps we could take to reverse it.

"Yes," said Holmes, gazing pensively upon the town. "It is highly probable, I have concluded, that we have been turned into ponies."

I liked Lightning when I first played Final Fantasy XIII, and I'm liking her more and more on this replay. Here is a brief plot summary of Final Fantasy XIII:

Anima: You get to be either a monster or a crystal! What'll it be?
Lightning: Actually, I'm just going to punch the world in the face.
Anima: That wasn't one of the options.
Lightning: I don't care.

She's pretty amazing.

Yes! Ponies! You are all invited to create ponies and pony up the comments. Have fun!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/328981.html

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is coming out in Europe in a few days! I don't really know what to expect from Final Fantasy XIII-2, as the main party consists of a character who didn't particularly interest me in the original game (although I did adore her relationship with Lightning) and some guy I don't know, but I loved XIII, so I'm certainly going to give it a try.

In order to get myself into the right mindset, I've been replaying Final Fantasy XIII. I'm liking Vanille a lot more this time around, now that I have a better understanding of how incredibly screwed up she is. (When I first encountered Vanille, I sensed that she was being somehow insincere and reached the conclusion that she was secretly evil. I was quite pleased to realise that she was, in fact, a good-hearted person; she just happened to be repressing everything in the world.) I considered having a Lightning-Fang-Vanille main team on this playthrough, when I actually reach the point at which you can choose your own team (incidentally, I really like that XIII makes you spend plenty of time with all the characters before you actually decide on your party), but then I remembered that I can't live without a good Synergist. Sorry, Vanille, but it's going to be Lightning-Fang-Sazh again.

Here's the thing about Final Fantasy XIII: the things it does, it does really well. It has a great battle system, a fascinating world and by far my favourite cast of characters from any Final Fantasy (there are individual characters from other games I like more - Yuna, Balthier - but as a whole, taking into account both the characters themselves and the relationships within the party, the XIII cast is definitely my favourite). The problem is that it doesn't do anything else; it's all fighting and character interaction. And it's great fighting! And it's great character interaction! But it does feel a little unvaried after a while. As a story, I absolutely love it. As a game... well, I still love it, but it's flawed.

A sentiment I often heard before playing XIII for myself was that the game became significantly better once you got to Gran Pulse, so I was surprised to find that Pulse for me was probably the weakest part. There are a billion missions for you to take on, but every single one of them is 'go to this place and kill this thing'. I was quite happy with the rest of the game being 'run along this path and kill things' because there was a sense of constantly moving forwards, but when it became 'run around this big space and kill things' the game seemed to lose its focus a bit, and without the arrowflight movement of the story the lack of variety in the gameplay stood out starkly. I wanted more to do on Pulse. Pulse was the one place where the game broke away from the plot for a while; it was the one place where the characters weren't forced to stay constantly on the move on account of being wanted fugitives. It could have given us more to do, but it didn't.

Well, yes, you can also hunt items with chocobos, but that just made me sad because it was like Chocobo Hot and Cold without being anywhere near as amazing. I would buy an entire game in which all you do is dig up Chocographs and then search for the locations depicted across all the Final Fantasy games.

All that said, Final Fantasy XIII is still one of my favourite entries in the series. But it could have been better, and I'm a little sad that it wasn't.

thebaconfat has linked to this fan translation of Episode Zero, a collection of official stories about the events leading up to Final Fantasy XIII, originally posted on the Japanese Square Enix website. There are some technical issues - tenses, paragraphing - but it's a translation with a lot of spirit, and I'm really enjoying it so far (I've read Encounter and Stranger). It's so interesting to see Vanille and Fang trying to make sense of a world where you're not being attacked all the time.

There's a scene where Vanille and Fang receive an invitation to lunch from some guys on the street, and they accept because on Pulse refusing such an invitation would essentially be a declaration of war, and they have no idea what a menu is and in any case they can't read it because it's in the Cocoon alphabet, and so:

Vanille motioned with her eyes, trying to ask Fang what they should do. Fang nodded, and went for her weapon.

I love Fang. 'I can't read this. What am I meant to do in this situation? PROBABLY KILL THINGS.'

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/328798.html

Good morning, [Subject Name Here].

A small percentage of test subjects may have difficulty emerging from deep sleep stasis. If you are still unconscious, please press the panic button on the far wall and follow the instructions.

Testing will begin shortly.

The portal will open in three... two... one...

I'm still not bored of the little desktop-ponies program. First-series Luna is my favourite desktop mascot; not only is she adorable, but she's unobtrusive enough for me to work comfortably while she's around, whereas somepony like Pinkie Pie is a terrible distraction.

(Talking about ponies in the presence of GLaDOS feels a bit weird. My Little Pony and Portal aren't really compatible fandoms. Although...)

The following [entry] may contain traces of classified information. If you read anything that you think you should not have read, such as [encoded test data] or [recipes for baked goods], please enter the Aperture Science Test Subject Memory Neutralisation Spike Pit.

I've been playing Portal 2's Commentary Mode on and off (it's so interesting! Why can't more videogames have commentary?), and this time, when I came to the conveyor belt carrying broken turrets to the furnace and I saw the turret that wasn't quite broken, I thought, Hey, I wonder if...

So I tried picking up the not-quite-broken turret and carrying it off the conveyor belt.

It said, 'Thank you.'

My heart, my heart, my heart. I'm sorry I shut down so many of your brethren, little turret, but in my defence they were trying to kill me.

Regarding the commentary itself: to my amusement and embarrassment, apparently playtesters frequently forgot they could go through portals in the test chamber that caught me out, so Valve programmed in a little pre-chamber section in which you had to go through a portal. And I still forgot that I could go through portals. I'm sorry, Valve; you did your best, but apparently I'm a hopeless case.

(Incidentally, have you seen this advertisement for the Long Fall Boots? Chell is so cool. I want to be her. Although ideally with slightly less undergoing incredibly dangerous tests at the will of passive-aggressive homicidal robots.)

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Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/328301.html

THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING. I have little pixellated Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy trotting around my screen at the moment. TWILIGHT JUST MAGICALLY TELEPORTED OFF MY SCREEN AND THEN BACK. Three times! I have no idea what she's up to. Applejack and Twilight just had a conversation! FLUTTERSHY IS SLEEPING AND IT'S ADORABLE. THIS IS THE BEST PROGRAM EVER MADE.

In other news (oh my goodness Rarity just put on her butterfly wings and started flying), I am now up to 'Pink Tops' in The Mentalist!

One of the many things I really like about Jane is that he's a massive coward. He's so smug and in control most of the time, but if at any point he feels his wellbeing is actually being threatened: RETREAT. RETREAT IMMEDIATELY. 'Let's go and talk to some dangerous drug dealers!' '...you want me to come with you?' 'Well, there's an extra bulletproof vest.' 'It's probably not my size. I'll just stay here.'

Also I very much enjoyed seeing Jane slammed against a wall by Bald Cop Guy. This is in part because of said massive cowardice. I like that, if you slam Jane against a wall, he won't smugly stare you down; he'll immediately drop eye contact, raise his hands and become as submissive and non-threatening as possible. He's so deeply not a Manly Action Guy. It's an interesting and welcome choice in a leading male character.

Applejack, I can't really see the entry window if you shove a great big apple tree in front of it, but you are so adorable that I'm not sure I care. (Best program ever. If you've ever wanted little ponies all over your desktop, go here immediately. The program itself is under the 'Download' heading, unsurprisingly; installation instructions are under 'Documentation'. And the selection of ponies is frankly ridiculous, although presumably more significant characters have more animations and such. (Something to watch out for: when you open the program, all the pony counts are set to 1 by default, so you'll want to press the '0 all ponies' button before choosing the ones you want, unless you want it to attempt to load THREE MILLION PONIES.)

I just loaded Derpy and she started flying upside-down. Amazing!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/327976.html

I received a request for a Pokémon manip post, and, hey, who am I to refuse? (I can't guarantee that I'll run off and make a Pokémon-related manip every time someone asks me to, but it's certainly not something that generally requires much prodding. I am weak-willed and very fond of Pokémon indeed.)

Pokémon in the Portal universe are probably kept in Aperture Science Pocket Monster Containment Spherical Cubes.

As always, this is an invitation to post your own silly Pokémon-related manips in the comments! Or indeed Portal-related manips; both are extremely manippable fandoms. Have fun!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/327912.html

Oh, my goodness,

browntroutblues recorded a podfic of Behind the Curtain, my Glee Kurt/Blaine horror fic! And the recording is perfect. I'm absolutely thrilled. If you like the fic, please do listen and then tell her how great she is. (She is really great!)

In other news, I finished Portal 2 today, and I don't think the ending could have been any more satisfying had it offered me actual real-life cake. What a great game.

( Spoilers for the ending of Portal 2. )

I was actually stuck for ages in a late-game chamber because I had forgotten that I could go through portals. I was just thinking about portals in terms of sending other things through them. That's fine, self; who can be expected to remember that you can go through those things? It's only the entire premise of the game.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/327628.html

pinkfinity has created a Sherlock-verse Moriarty/Sherlock fanvid set to 'Girlfriend' by Avril Lavigne. As you have probably already guessed from that frankly beautiful combination of song and subject matter, it is the greatest fanvid ever made. Moriarty is definitely the motherfucking princess.

For Christmas, my brother got me the Undead Nightmare add-on for Red Dead Redemption, in which the Old West is overrun by zombies. I love that it doesn't take itself even remotely seriously; it actually opens with a dramatic voiceover and an evil laugh. The Bonnie mission still broke my heart, though.

Sometimes, when you're wandering around in the original Red Dead Redemption, you'll come across someone sobbing over a body. When I found a man crying over a dead friend in Undead Nightmare, I stopped to watch for a moment. Suddenly, the friend leapt up with a bloodthirsty roar and the man, startled, shot him in the head. So many little details!

Something about John Marston that the add-on reinforces, and which has always intrigued me, is how very credulous he is. He'll shoot a man, sure, but he ain't gonna lie to his face, and he expects the same courtesy from everyone he meets. He'll firmly believe the first version of a story he hears, no matter how dodgy the circumstances seem; tell him you were attacked by the unarmed terrified man running away from you, and he will tie up that man, bring him to your feet and remain convinced that this was the correct decision right up until you pull out a knife and fork. I imagine he would have far more respect for a murderer than for a conman.

Whilst I'm talking about Red Dead Redemption (the original game, not Undead Nightmare): my brother Joseph hates Jack. In a late-game mission, when Jack was injured and riding with John on his horse, Joseph spurred the horse until it threw them both off, then remounted and rode slightly ahead of Jack for the rest of the way, forcing Jack to limp behind the horse all the way back to the farm. Everything John said to Jack after that felt like thinly-disguised loathing.

Also, Joseph once encountered two marshals at the entrance to Tall Trees and followed them to see where they would go. They must be programmed to enter the nearest settlement when followed, because they walked into his farm and started cleaning the windows and looking through the drawers. They were still there the next in-game day. It was really creepy.

(I once took a stagecoach to the farm and whistled for my horse as the stagecoach was driving away. The stagecoach stopped, evidently thinking I had whistled for it. I didn't have any way of saying 'no, stagecoach, it's fine, you can leave now', so I just went to my in-game bed.

When I walked out of the front door the next morning, the coach was still there. The stagecoach horses had disappeared, the stagecoach driver was running away screaming, and as I watched, completely bewildered, the empty stagecoach trundled down the slope until it crashed into my fence.

What on Earth happened? I suppose I'll never know.)

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/327310.html

Everyone on the planet has already posted their Sherlock reaction post, as far as I can tell, and you're probably all thoroughly sick of reading them by now. TOO BAD; HERE'S MINE.

( Thoughts on 'The Reichenbach Fall', the second-series Sherlock finale. )

Television-wise, it's been an excellent start to 2012! Let's hope the year keeps it up.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/327158.html

I've been playing Portal 2 for the past few days and would highly recommend it! I don't think I've ever played a game that gave me such a strong sense of achievement before. The puzzles that frustrate me the most when I'm trying to solve them tend to be the ones I like the most in retrospect; it's so satisfying to have a sudden breakthrough just when you're reaching hurl-the-controller-through-the-window levels of exasperation.

I'm in a really videogamey mood at the moment, actually. EVERYONE GET INTO VIDEOGAMES AND THEN TALK ABOUT THEM FOR ME. This is such an exciting medium! It's changing and developing at an incredible rate! Nobody knows what it will do next! And yet the mainstream media still consider gaming a weird niche thing that people should grow out of, and that makes me really sad.

A few months ago, The Times had two articles in the same week over which I scribbled furious 'NO, YOU ARE WRONG' notes. The first was a report on the controversy surrounding Battlefield 3, in which the reporter expressed the belief that 'plots in video games are about as sophisticated as those in porn films', making it quite apparent that he doesn't play videogames himself. You wouldn't find a mainstream newspaper commissioning a journalist who had never been to the theatre to report on a controversial play; a piece on a controversial game should be written by someone who knows about games.

The second article was an extract from You and Me: the Neuroscience of Identity by Susan Greenfield, and contained the following:

When you play a computer game to rescue the princess, it is not because the princess is meaningful or significant to you - you probably won't care about her as a person - but because of the thrill of the process of playing and winning. Yet when you read a book, it is because you care about the characters, their relationships with others and their fates: their past, present and future and interrelations with other characters give them meaning.

There is indeed a game in which an essentially meaningless, characterless princess is kidnapped as a simple excuse for the actual gameplay. It's called Super Mario Bros, and it was released in 1985. That was more than a quarter of a century ago, and in the interval since then games have gone from looking like this (Super Mario Bros, Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1985) to looking like this (Uncharted, Naughty Dog, PlayStation 3, 2007). Is it possible that game storytelling has become more sophisticated as well?

I've warmed a little to it now, but when I first started playing the Uncharted series I hated the combat system. I was terrible at it. I died all the time. Despite not liking a huge chunk of the gameplay, I carried on with the game, and I carried on with the game because I cared about the characters. In this case, I wasn't playing for 'the thrill of the process of playing and winning'; I was going through that process because I really, really wanted to metaphorically rescue the metaphorical princess.

Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII contain about ten hours of cutscenes each. If the story and character interaction in those games were conceived as a flimsy excuse for the actual gameplay, Square put in a frankly surprising amount of effort.

The ending of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days made me cry until I couldn't see the screen. Just listening to the final battle music afterwards could still make me sob. I can assure you that I wasn't crying because I was so thrilled to have won the game.

I'll happily admit that some games are focused almost exclusively on gameplay and don't give much thought to plot or characterisation, and that's fine, but dismissing games altogether as a storytelling medium absolutely infuriates me. I opened this entry by praising Portal 2 for its satisfying puzzle-solving gameplay, but even a game as gameplay-focused as Portal has a backstory and sharply-drawn characters. If you say that videogames have no plot, no soul, no characters worth caring about, you are wrong. It's as simple as that.

Well, that was an awful lot of ranting at people who probably aren't reading this journal! Something positive to finish: it may interest you to know that

penny_lane_42 is hosting a fic-request meme for interaction between female characters. Enjoy!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/326854.html

ATONEMENT FIC TIME: here, as an apology for the Nate/Elena/Sully, is a completely gen piece about Sully and the teenage Nate, early in their acquaintance. You may have seen this at

unchartedkink. I'd actually had a snippet of it lying around for a while, but then someone posted a prompt that, to my surprise, matched that snippet, and so I was spurred to finish it.

Title: Only Most of Your Presents Are Bruises
Fandom: Uncharted
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 900
Summary: A few months after their first encounter, Nate and Sully are, unsurprisingly, being shot at.

( Only Most of Your Presents Are Bruises )

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/326484.html

Oh, no. Okay. Deep breath.

Everyone stand back: I've attempted a sex scene. Historically, such attempts on my part have not gone well. It's a fairly mild sex scene - if this were a film, the cameras would be carefully positioned so you didn't see any genitalia - and it's extremely talky, which is a distraction, but I'm still a bit nervous. Not least because it's primarily an Elena/Sully sex scene, of all things, and I'm afraid the Uncharted fandom is going to run me out. I don't think I have the guts to post this to any communities.

I came to the conclusion whilst writing this that I actually prefer the 'Sully as father/uncle figure' interpretation of his relationship with Nate and Elena, so I don't think I'll be writing Nate/Elena/Sully again. But I did think at least one Nate/Elena/Sully fic should exist. Now it does! I hope I've done the concept reasonable justice.

MILLION DISCLAIMERS OVER. I can't imagine many people will want to read this, but I hope you enjoy it if you do! Many thanks to

sai_salamander for giving me the courage to post this. There's still a possibility I'll freak out and take it down. We'll see!

Title: Did I Ever Tell You About Portugal?
Fandom: Uncharted
Rating: R (not-hugely-explicit sex)
Pairing (trioing?): Nathan/Elena/Sully (with an emotional focus on Nathan/Elena and a physical one on Elena/Sully, but there is some Nate/Sully in here)
Wordcount: 2,800
Summary: Elena and Nate decide to bring Sully into their relationship. This is possibly ill-advised on the part of the characters and definitely ill-advised on the part of the author.
Warnings: Although this is set before Uncharted 3, there's an Uncharted 3 spoiler in here. Fairly large age gap (Sully is around sixty, Nate and Elena in their mid-thirties).

( Did I Ever Tell You About Portugal? )

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/326382.html

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Riona

February 2012

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Trabia Garden

Recent Entries

As Similar As Two Completely Dissimilar Things In A Pod.

I Was Also Addicted To Triple Triad.

We're The Sheep Of Gran Pulse.

That's Not Helpful! I Don't Know Why I Thought That Would Help!

Do You Remember The Sound?

Where Did You Come From? Yes Or No?

Crumpet The Destroyer.

Nobody Likes Steelguard.

It's Clearly Not A Self-Insert; She's Called Rainbow FLASH.

Truly A Singular Case.

Just Keep Running.

If Anyone Asks, I Killed You.

'This Could Use More Ponies' Is Rarely An Incorrect Statement.

Guilty Of Being In Space.

I'm The Best. I'm The Best At Space.

I'm Going To Wander Down That Lonely, Deserted Street And Get My Bag.

It's An Ear Hat, John.

It's A Better Plan Than Exploding, Marginally.

Fanfiction: Only Most of Your Presents Are Bruises (Uncharted)

Fanfiction: Did I Ever Tell You About Portugal? (Uncharted, Nathan/Elena/Sully)

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February 2012

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