Dance Central

We beat dance central tonight. Of course beat is loosely defined with a game like that. We've unlocked and beat all of the challenges. That means (in effect) that we've gotten 4 stars on every song.

All told we've spent 11 hours playing the game. That sounds incorrect. I've watched Katie play some of the songs over and over. I guess they don't take as long as you think. Most of the songs are only 3 or 4 minutes long so I guess you can do one 20 times and still only have used around an hour.

It was funny. At first we were doing every song in the "break it down" mode all the way through on easy. Then we'd perform it.

Later I realized that going through the song twice (once to learn the moves, once to pass it on easy) was quicker than going through the break it down mode.

I'm glad it's there though. Some of the songs that I like more I'll want it for the medium and hard modes.

It's fun in that it breaks down what look like complicated sequences into learnable moves. I'm not saying I'll be the next great pop dancer, but at least I understand some of the basic moves people combine together to get cool results.

Now I just need to work on my popping and locking.

As a very side note Perfect Couples has gotten a lot better. I kind of hope they get renewed for a second season. I'm not so sure they will, but if they do I'll make sure and watch it.

Minecraft

I love minecraft.

I am a little irritated though.

It seems that the beta (1.3) SMP is just less stable than the previous versions. I think part of it is the addition of so many new features. I love new features. They are insanely awesome. However I feel like the additional information tracked has had some strong negative consequences.

I see a lot of popping blocks now. I get disconnected quite frequently. I see things I've placed disappear only to log off and back in and see they have reappeared.

It's not broken. The game is entirely playable. But it is a hassle. Of course it's a beat so things are supposed to be even worse. I can't say I blame them for adding things in before taking time to optimize the client/server transactions.

But it is irritating. This is a perfect example of ingratitude. A guy has made an incredibly awesome game available since alpha at a dirt cheap price. Rather than rave about how awesome the game is (and it is awesome) I complain that the beta multiplayer has some problems.

I get on my own nerves sometimes.

I'll escape by going and doing some mining.

Are MMORPGs from the Devil?

I find that not playing an MMORPG (WoW is my particular brand) multiplies my time. I seem to have all of this time on my hands all of a sudden. I feel that the days have grown longer (and though it's spring and the daylight has grown longer that isn't what I mean).

It's nice. I've been able to get back to my list of goals for 2011. If there is one thing I've noticed it is that MMORPG's are the death of other goals. You lose track of time and then it's time for bed and you haven't gotten anything else done.

Even with other time waster games out there (Torchlight being my current) I find I can't play them for too long. It feels more like a waste of time. The progression is different. Maybe WoW is unique, but I have vague memories of Everquest, Anarchy Online, and Guild Wars all doing similar things to my perception of time.

Maybe it's the multiplayer part. I can remember completely losing track of time playing Smash Brothers and other games. The same goes for Halo 2. Something about playing a fun game with friends makes time fly.

So MMORPG's you aren't of the devil. You're just a lot of fun and you are a little too accessible.

NBC Comedy Thursday Nights

I like Thursday nights on NBC. I find the shows to all be hilarious. The only downside is that 3 hours of television is too long for me. In fact I really feel like anything more than 2 hours is too long.

I'm willing to not watch Outsourced. So the choice is either miss 30 Rock or Community. Both are solid shows. Tonight's Community was surprisingly not that funny.

Don't get me wrong I laughed. There were some great moments and plenty of good lines. However the general tone of the show was not humor. The general flavor of the episode was serious. It was weird to see Danny Pudi showing so much emotion. His performance as "Chad"-Abed gave the episode a ton of gravity. It was weird even after he returned to the Abed I'm used to seeing. In fact that seemed to highlight the differences of his earlier actions even more.

All of the jokes seemed less funny. Troy's antics and Jeff's willingness to let Britta lose her job didn't seem that funny. The montage at the end when they act out different parts of Pulp Fiction didn't make me laugh at all.

It was awesome. It wasn't funny, but it was still really good. Community can pull off genuinely touching moments. It generally weaves them in with the comedy.

Troy is the funniest character on the show. I've had this discussion with my wife many times and I stand by that statement.

I think my favorite though is Abed. His status as the outsider is clear. A man always on the outside observing the lives of the people around him without ever really being on the inside. I think that is what gave "American Poultry" so much weight. The homage to mafia movies was hilarious. However the naked vulnerability throughout the episode (and series) of Abed using culture to try and establish connections with other people is intense.

In American Poultry the balance between comedy and seriousness clearly leans toward comedy. "I dressed like a crazy Pharaoh for you man". Tonight's episode leaned the other way. Abed's commentary on a revelation is more poignant when we realize it isn't real. Maybe it's how he think he should be or how he thinks he would be in that situation.

At the end of the day the story is about someone who longs to feel the touch of the people around him. Who wants to stop being on the outside and feel like he thinks other people feel.

Abed is the, superficially, least deep character. He is a machine to allow the writers to comment on culture and be geeky. However when you look you see that he is in fact the deepest character on the show. He so clearly conveys his desperate need to connect with people by completely dedicating himself to the one medium where he can do exactly that.

Torchlight

I'm trying to blog something every day.

So today I'll talk about Torchlight.

It's a fun little game. Kind of a Diablo type clone. Nothing revolutionary.

However it's only $15 and I feel like a time waster game that recreates a classic game with new content that is reasonable.

Something like spiderweb software (with the Geneforge games) seems to be in a similar vein. I really like those games, but I do feel the prices are a little high ($28 for Geneforge 5). I might be willing to buy them if I like the demo enough, but it would be more of a considered buy than a quick buy.

Torchlight was more of a quick buy. I knew I would probably get around 40 gaming hours out of it. Since the $/time played ratio was good it means that game is a good value.

Compare to something like Disgaea where I logged more than 200 hours for a $35 game or Pokemon Pearl which was 300 for $40 and you'll see that really great games have a better ratio, but I think 40 hours for $15 is a good deal. It's not the best game in the world, but it's solid.