My iPod Touch is mostly for Twitter and some light browsing, but it’s a pretty potent little gamer, too. But I’m rather stingy about what I spend on at the App Store– if I have to pay, it’d better be something I’ll play more than once, even if it’s only a buck.

Enter Angry Birds.

Often plugged to high hell and given plenty of free advertising on TWiT, Angry Birds is pretty much as it looks– a bunch of pissed-off birds getting revenge on evil pigs who looted their eggs. You fling birds off a giant slingshot (new bird types are unlocked as you progress and yes, one of them is pretty much a Prinny/Bob-Omb). If you’ve ever played Yoshi Touch & Go, the concept is not THAT different– still pretty reliant on trajectories and a bit of back-yard physics.

All that for $1. Ya rly. There’s a Halloween-themed “expansion” out (it’s as much as an expansion as City of Villains was to City of Heroes, e.g. it’s NOT), which is also $1… and you get craploads of levels regardless of which version you pick.

If you’re not packing an iOS-based device (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) or an Android-based phone, you aren’t entirely out of luck. There’s a PC version of some sort in the works; whether it’s flash-based or otherwise is unknown. I would totally love to play it on Yggdrasil and his sexy HDTV monitor.
It’s also in the pipeline for the Playstation Store (and thus usable on either the PS3 or PSP). I heard there may be a Wii/DS version– and really, it would be PERFECT for those– but nothing’s been officially announced on that side yet.

You know what would be fun, though? Rovio needs to license the Angry Birds format out and see what happens. I’d definitely like to see what NIS would do with it. “Angry Prinnies,” anyone? Take it a step further and replace the slingshot with Etna holding a Prinny-sized grenade launcher. >:D

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Pizza Wednesday, as usual! Only firing for one because everyone else is out for the day, so party hard! Bwahahahaha.
I have a free pizza credit at Papa Johns since I’ve piled up enough points, but I prefer to save those for when I order for the house. Therefore, Pizza Hut gets my money today.

Inked. Say it with me, I get so much more done after midnight.
Old man Phil’s part will look that much more lulzy and convincing once I color this thing.

Totally stolen from konami because I can and because I need a distraction from this sudden lower jaw pain that’s been kicking my ass all day and Advil isn’t doing squat to shut it up.

Spoilers on deck? Oh yeah.

(continue reading…)

I’ve been on these interwebs a long time, so you’d think I’d be used to nonsense like trolling and dumbassery by now, and lower my expectations of humanity accordingly. But late at night I also tend to overthink things… thus, this post.

Please indulge me, internet and gaming culture, as I have some questions. I’m not trolling, I really do want to know the appeal behind these things.

1. Why do you veer in favor of sexual/bodily function humor? See: games in which you get to name your character, and have public channels, and then OMFG OUTRAGE because there are measures in place to stop you from naming your character “Dong.” I hate censorship as much as the next guy, but… really? Are we all perpetually 12 years old? We are better than that. At least, I want to think we are. It’s not even that funny.

2. Why do you hate women? I was almost going to rephrase “women who do not fit conventional standards of attractiveness,” but it seems this part of the world just has this overwhelming hatred of women as a whole. And it doesn’t stop there… I thankfully don’t see it much if at all in City of Heroes, but in WoW it’s hip to claim that we don’t exist, and if we do we’re all fat and ugly and deserve to be harassed and violated and all sorts of other things OH BUT WE STILL LOVE YOUR BOOBIES. I almost feel sorry for these trolls, clearly the people in their lives never taught them to respect their female peers.

3. Why do you hate homosexuals, then co-opt homosexuality for trolling? This is especially common in WoW. I see all this hate speech about them flying, and then there are some who commandeer gay stereotypes to troll and be generally obnoxious and hateful, and that’s even worse. It’s as if these people don’t even want to put forth the effort to be civil.

4. Seriously, did you sleep through civics/history class… or school as a whole? (Particularly pertinent to Americans.) Ignoring specific political opinions, I’m disturbed at how many people do not really have any understanding of the technical details of how our government works. More than that, I’m just… sad at how much blatant, willful ignorance is thrown about, and that we think being stupid is actually something to be celebrated! If you can be bothered to look up PVP builds or boss strategies, what is stopping you from truly educating yourself about the world?

There are others but now that I think about it, they’re more or less variations of the above four.

I know, I know, “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” right? Knowing that doesn’t make it any less discouraging. As much as we fling around the non-solution “just ignore them,” you really can’t. It’s everywhere. You’re drenched in it all the time. You grit your teeth and try to endure, but you can only take so much before it starts to wear on you… and there’s really no escape.

Rarely, there are reminders that there are still good people out there. Their rarity makes it all the sweeter, but still depressing that people behaving civilly towards each other is not the norm.

…Sleep now.

Kotaku says boo, I on the other hand say YAAAAAY. Even if, visually, it’s “FF4 Lite” (no, really, its tilesets reek of FF4) this was the little FF that could. For one thing, this was the RPG that put healbombing on the map, if it didn’t invent it outright! Also, remember all those Instant Ramen posts that have Hikaru in her final equipment? Where the hell do you think I got her Aegis Shield from? >:D

Also, holy freaking crap, you can hate on this little game as much as you like for being redonkulously easy, but the OST is just THAT AWESOME. >:] The only way it could possibly win anymore is if, oh, Sakuraba and Hamauzu were to handle a remix album? That’d be the epitome of “rocking the fwegh out.”

*cough*
I promise that was not an ironic cough. Hairball.

—

In other news, WTF APPLE. I thought mother was feeding BS because you know all the tech news outlets would be crapping their pants at the mention of any of Apple’s stuff going to Verizon, yet this slips under the radar.

And yet… I’ma have to give this a “meh.” I considered it as a candidate for Dinah’s next form, and also as a tertiary Instant Ramen device, but in the end I’d rather have a Verizon iPhone. :P I’ve still got my LG enV from… what, ’07? I’ve not bothered to get a new phone simply because there wasn’t anything out there that interested me enough. There are a couple of worthy Android candidates but having had an iPod 2G and more recently the iPod Touch (also 2g), it seems a natural progression to hold out for a Verizon iPhone. C’mon Apple. You gave Verizon the iPad… >_>; time to tell AT&T to GTFO already!

…also, I’ve a bunch of apps and I don’t want to have to buy up Android versions of ‘em. :P

—

Finally, and while it’s taking its sweet-ass-time, I’m actually cleaning up my actual bedroom in preparation to move the bed back to the center so it’s aligned with the TV. Currently, it’s up against the window, so I have to turn my head if I want to see the screen (this is slightly exacerbated by Yggdrasil’s case blocking off about 1/5 of the screen) and… after awhile, it’s not so fun. The only other option would be to get a new chair, and given my history with recliner chairs… um, yeah, I’d rather just suck it up and move my bed. I just need to declutter the wall opposite of my TV/Yggdrasil before I can actually move stuff around. In short, I’m pretty much reverting my room to the way it was when we moved here nearly 11 years ago.

I may order a couple of those plastic shelves too. I could stand to have actual furniture in my room. Fancy that. Need to find out what models we’re packing now, I may just get on Amazon and order more of those.