Layout and some games
Aug. 12th, 2010 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gigabahamut666So thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dqbunny and secondlina, I have a nice brand new LJ layout which I really love a lot. It's kind of funny that I got it updated considering how little I use this thing. But I guess I've always felt like I've never had anything interesting to say. And whenever I did have anything interesting to say, it usually involved dqbunny and she would post about it and basically I have a small fraction of those following her following me. So it ends up reaching essentially the same audience. More really when you think about it. But since the layout's been updated, I feel like I should say more.
Recently I picked up DeathSpank for the PS3. It's a fun little hack and slash style action RPG. You can tell a lot has been put into the story and it's trying to be pretty humorous. However, I've not particularly laughed all that much to the dialogue and I've found myself agreeing with a lot of critics in that the voice actor for DeathSpank himself is a little annoying. I find myself actually skipping the voiced dialogue and just read the text quickly. The gameplay itself is very addicting. You're doing stuff all the time, you're levelling up fairly regularly (I believe the cap is 20). You're collecting items all the time and due to the limited size of your inventory, you actually grind old armour and weapons you no longer need on a fairly regular basis. So it hooks you in the fact you feel like you're always progressing. It can also be fairly difficult until you start realising you need to actually use your block and that you can't just rush in and mash the face buttons repeatedly. I'm close to the end now and I've probably put in about 7-8 hours so far. I'm definitely enjoying it even though I'm not fond of the dialogue.
dqbunny actually picked up the second game I played recently. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a side scrolling beat em up in the same vein as Streets of Rage or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game. The Streets of Rage comparison is probably more apt as you have a kind of special power and can call for help with the use of the R1 and L1 buttons. There's also an RPG element in that you gain experience as you beat people up and gain levels, giving you access to new moves while also become stronger. I've only played the first two levels and already even on the easier difficulty, the game is fairly brutal. You get beat up fairly easily and it's rare for me to get through a level without losing at least two lives and you only have three. Luckily the game isn't over if you lose all three lives. You just have to start again from the beginning of the level which you died on. I love the look of it though, as it gives a real 8/16-bit feel and the soundtrack is pretty cool too. I can see playing with four people all together being a whole lot of fun.
As for personally how I'm doing. In all honesty, I don't think it's going great. I'm finding the PhD a real struggle in terms of motivation. A lot of it is down to self doubt I have in myself. It's just been nothing but a constant feeling of failure, more so because I'm not sure my undergraduate degree helped cater towards the PhD. The department I'm based at are all mainly observational astrophysicist, whereas I'm more theoretical. That requires me to do a lot of work with computer code to produce theoretical models. The problem is that I really feel like I don't understand the code I'm working with very well. I feel like I don't understand a lot of what I'm supposed to know. It doesn't help when I'm told by some that the project I'm working on was originally supposed to be for a postdoc position, but it was refused because it was too hard. So why I've been given it as only a postgrad, I'm not sure. There have times when I've wondered if I should just give it up. I'm already past three years which is when they want you to have completed everything. I'm not being funded any more. I'm just so lucky my parents put up with me living at home because if I wasn't, I would be in real trouble. The thing is. I'm not sure if I'm just too stupid, or I'm too stubborn but I just refuse to give up. I feel like I've spent all this time already, I want to get a PhD out of it. Finding the motivation is just so hard and I'm so scared that it's just going to be a complete failure.gullwhacker gave dqbunny a link to PhD Comic to show me. We both think I'm the infinite orbit.
UPDATE:
And of course Giant Bomb put up a Quick Look of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I don't really get their negativity though. What they call weird with the game references, I find pretty fun and nostalgic. I've also never heard of Scott Pilgrim before until I saw trailers of the movie, which I am really interested in seeing, because again, I love the video game references (1ups, reversals, enemies exploding into coins like in No More Heroes along with the lightsabres). I also don't find Michael Cera that annoying. I find him to be a fairly funny actor who I guess plays characters I find myself easily relating to.
dqbunny and secondlina, I have a nice brand new LJ layout which I really love a lot. It's kind of funny that I got it updated considering how little I use this thing. But I guess I've always felt like I've never had anything interesting to say. And whenever I did have anything interesting to say, it usually involved dqbunny and she would post about it and basically I have a small fraction of those following her following me. So it ends up reaching essentially the same audience. More really when you think about it. But since the layout's been updated, I feel like I should say more.Recently I picked up DeathSpank for the PS3. It's a fun little hack and slash style action RPG. You can tell a lot has been put into the story and it's trying to be pretty humorous. However, I've not particularly laughed all that much to the dialogue and I've found myself agreeing with a lot of critics in that the voice actor for DeathSpank himself is a little annoying. I find myself actually skipping the voiced dialogue and just read the text quickly. The gameplay itself is very addicting. You're doing stuff all the time, you're levelling up fairly regularly (I believe the cap is 20). You're collecting items all the time and due to the limited size of your inventory, you actually grind old armour and weapons you no longer need on a fairly regular basis. So it hooks you in the fact you feel like you're always progressing. It can also be fairly difficult until you start realising you need to actually use your block and that you can't just rush in and mash the face buttons repeatedly. I'm close to the end now and I've probably put in about 7-8 hours so far. I'm definitely enjoying it even though I'm not fond of the dialogue.
dqbunny actually picked up the second game I played recently. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a side scrolling beat em up in the same vein as Streets of Rage or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game. The Streets of Rage comparison is probably more apt as you have a kind of special power and can call for help with the use of the R1 and L1 buttons. There's also an RPG element in that you gain experience as you beat people up and gain levels, giving you access to new moves while also become stronger. I've only played the first two levels and already even on the easier difficulty, the game is fairly brutal. You get beat up fairly easily and it's rare for me to get through a level without losing at least two lives and you only have three. Luckily the game isn't over if you lose all three lives. You just have to start again from the beginning of the level which you died on. I love the look of it though, as it gives a real 8/16-bit feel and the soundtrack is pretty cool too. I can see playing with four people all together being a whole lot of fun.As for personally how I'm doing. In all honesty, I don't think it's going great. I'm finding the PhD a real struggle in terms of motivation. A lot of it is down to self doubt I have in myself. It's just been nothing but a constant feeling of failure, more so because I'm not sure my undergraduate degree helped cater towards the PhD. The department I'm based at are all mainly observational astrophysicist, whereas I'm more theoretical. That requires me to do a lot of work with computer code to produce theoretical models. The problem is that I really feel like I don't understand the code I'm working with very well. I feel like I don't understand a lot of what I'm supposed to know. It doesn't help when I'm told by some that the project I'm working on was originally supposed to be for a postdoc position, but it was refused because it was too hard. So why I've been given it as only a postgrad, I'm not sure. There have times when I've wondered if I should just give it up. I'm already past three years which is when they want you to have completed everything. I'm not being funded any more. I'm just so lucky my parents put up with me living at home because if I wasn't, I would be in real trouble. The thing is. I'm not sure if I'm just too stupid, or I'm too stubborn but I just refuse to give up. I feel like I've spent all this time already, I want to get a PhD out of it. Finding the motivation is just so hard and I'm so scared that it's just going to be a complete failure.
gullwhacker gave dqbunny a link to PhD Comic to show me. We both think I'm the infinite orbit.UPDATE:
And of course Giant Bomb put up a Quick Look of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I don't really get their negativity though. What they call weird with the game references, I find pretty fun and nostalgic. I've also never heard of Scott Pilgrim before until I saw trailers of the movie, which I am really interested in seeing, because again, I love the video game references (1ups, reversals, enemies exploding into coins like in No More Heroes along with the lightsabres). I also don't find Michael Cera that annoying. I find him to be a fairly funny actor who I guess plays characters I find myself easily relating to.
