Working PAX West 2016

Spareboard XA. That's what I am this year! The line-managing, person-directing, go-getter that works 40 hours over 4 days. Normally, the Exhibition Hall Assistant (XA) is usually assigned to a booth, like Capcom, and handles one or several of the tasks mentioned above for a dainty 5-hour shift. What I'm doing is hanging around, shootin' the breeze for a half hour, and then being dispatched out for crowd control. Day one's tasks were telling people not to run when we opened doors, escorting e-sports celebrities and finally managing the line -- NO CUTS--for Destiny's latest episode. The hardest part about everything is being on your feet so long...There was also a 1000 piece dragon puzzle that was put together by the end of the day. I'm lucky enough to have avoided any crises. Trying to catch a bus out of Downtown Seattle was the most nerve-fraying experience of the day, but what else is new?

Day Two was mostly managing the line for a very thankful Bungie as they did a Destiny tournament. The booth had a 3' x 3' ghost made of MegaBlocks, as well as a Warlock cosplay that caused some foot traffic management on my part to minimize congestion. The day was interrupted by a massive headache that aspirin just wasn't a match for. When I went back to the e-sports players, I actually watched them play my current PC favorite: Heroes of the Storm. I run the game on my 6-year-old laptop, and it was bonkers to see the best players in the region play on dedicated gaming PCs. Very smoothness. Pretty graphic. Wow.

I had him in my sights

Capped off Day Two meeting Darth Maul and Capt. Picard, and playing Street Fighter V. Ohh yeah, and there was a new puzzle!

Humans created the holodeck before the Enterprise...

Day Three I hit my stride. Most of the day I was assigned to Nvidia, with their 3 VR stations. The big draw was a 30-minute 4-player Star Trek mission where the players entered the bridge of the Enterprise. This means that a line of 18 people is a 3.5 hour wait with prep and rotation times. The issues were that people were trying to make a line to get into the official line, which we couldn't do, but all the issues of, "I got here first," were solved quickly and quietly. The last day of the show, a woman came with her family, and was almost in tears when I turned her away. It turns out she had followed them around for the first 3 days of the show, and wasn't into video games. She was a huge Star Trek fan, and when I discretely made an exception, she burst into tears and even hugged me before sitting down the 5 hours to get her chance on the bridge. I started tearing up, too and I really didn't know my best memory of PAX 2016 would be letting someone in line. 

Yeah!

I also ended up taking over for one of the zone leaders during their lunch break. It was the perfect opportunity for something to go wrong: turns out AMD had picket signs and was staging a protest in front of Nvidia's booth. I waved off what I thought was the problem, but apparently I missed it. This leads me to one of my largest misunderstandings about my role at PAX. During training, they referred to us as problem-solvers and used the word 'problem,' all over the place. I picked up my definition of problem from 10 years of teaching and would equate it to fighting students, repeated issues with turning in homework, or a natural disaster. This fake protest and annoyance registered as a problem, and people asked me if I had reported it to our supervisors. Eventually it was properly escalated and the two rival companies made up.

Ensign Mawz saw an opening on da bridge

This time, I met Capt. Picard again, and we played the first Halo on the original Xbox, with the largest controllers ever.

The picture is brighter because a Flash was used

Day four's morning meeting was met with some disappointing news about the show that I can't share with you. I can tell you that my Spareboard XA shift means that I only have my lunch break to see interesting booths, but should be resting during that time. This means that I'm working during most of the swag opportunities, and have almost no chance to get free stuff from the show. I'm still glad I did PAX 2016, will get paid for it, and even made a friend on the last day!

End of Games of Summer 2016

Opposites attract and same colors repel, as you get dynamic
control over your polarization to jump through these
puzzles. Ohh, and one-hit-deaths.

This month has been a doozy! I've played 3 new games this month, starting with a free PS+ game called Teslagrad. The former is a hand-drawn puzzle platformer, with no vocals or dialogue, with a pretty short playthrough. I like the game's campaign length, and simplicity. You get an ability to teleport short distances, and an ability to polarize red or blue, which attracts or repels objects including yourself. Otherwise, you collect 36 objects for 36 trophies, and that's it.

Frickin jam out to Chop Suey!

Guitar Hero Live has a very premium presentation. In Live mode, you play sets of 3-4 songs in front of a live audience, and the whole thing is live-action, recorded in super-crisp first person. This is one of the best versions of the view I've ever seen. Your band members are a tad overdone and you'll spot the acting, but GHL is an ambitious project that succeeds. As if this offline component wasn't sweet enough, you can also play GHTV, the 24/7 drop in/drop out continuous streaming of songs. There are at least 100 free songs, each with their own music video as you haul ass on the guitar. The controls have been overhauled from 5 keys down the neck to a more-compact 3x3, which was surprisingly easy to pickup after playing at least 10 guitar games with the 1x5 layout. The trophy path is challenging, but not as hard as some of the past games. I think one of those games had you play ~100 songs in a row without failing or pausing, or some complete garbage. The hardest one in GH Live might be hitting all notes in 4 songs on the hardest difficulty...or 1 song 4 times. Otherwise, there is playing the online mode for a total of 24 hours, and strumming the guitar 1 million times, which just take some perseverance.

This month also saw the win-some-lose-some release of No Man's Sky, which disappointed a decent amount of people in the same way that I was disappointed with Dangerous Golf. I'm not one for sandbox games, and really didn't care about No Man Sky's potential. I just don't do games that don't have goals, and games that have long completion times better be the cream of the crop. I hope the people who were disappointed with the game get a magic patch with all the missing gameplay features they're waiting for and a little stability...I'll keep my eyes forward for Final Fantasy XV.

Think...Marvel Ultimate Alliance + StarCraft

A free PS+ title this month is Kill Strain, which is pretty much what the dismal failure Evolve should have been. The game currently only has one map, with a dozen playable characters. Each match takes about 20 25 minutes, and starts 4 v 4 v 2. 8 of those players use human characters from several classes and try to kill either the other human team or the Strain team. The Strain team has its own unique 3 classes, and a small chance to infect a human after killing them. When this happens, the Strain team grows in number, as the previously-human player now joins the Strain team. Having one map, and only 250 players online at a given time, the game could use a little flushing out. However, from reviews of Evolve, this free game has a decent chance to run the full-priced game a run for its money.

Other than that I am still plugging away at Overwatch and Gems of War.

August update

July's monthly goal of eating the contents of my freezer and pantry was a bust. The purpose of doing this was to prevent a buildup, keep items from spoiling or losing taste from being frozen, curb food shopping expenses for the month. I didn't quite make it through all of the 6 packs frozen vegetables, and there's a tube of chorizo that I should use pronto. Everything else, like ramen, the 4 cans of beans and tomatoes, and Trader Joe's meals still has a very long shelf life. My girlfriend moved in near the end of the month, and brought her stored food as well, derailing the mission.

I have been chosen to volunteer over Labor Day weekend for PAX! That was a relief, though the position I'll be working is apparently 12-hour shifts, and will probably deal with a lot of noise. This is in stark contrast to last year's position at the Handheld Lounge, where I sat in a chair the whole time, talking with fellow volunteers and chatting with people about Pokemon and Final Fantasy.

The day before PAX will be my last day working customer service at my current job. Lots of people would tell me how irresponsible that is - choosing a 4-day convention over stable employment, but I dare you to work customer service for 8 months after having way cushier jobs, and not make the same call. Quitting the company will give me a much-needed kick in the ass to find higher-paying work so I can get back to saving. Let me add, though, that because of my awesome saving, I have a cushion of "f- you money." I recently sold all of my Apple stock - after 1.5 years of mediocre performance - and will be spending that on necessities instead of reinvesting it. This will buy me time to find a job I want more than simply settling as quickly as possible. So, consider the freedom that a chunk of savings can earn you!

The day after PAX is when I say goodbye to my girlfriend for a very long time, as she has to return to Korea. Her student and work visas have run out after 5 years, and so has the money. The plan is for her to work in her home country, and blow her savings every couple months to visit, but the frugal part of me is shaking my head. I think the best option would be for me to take a limited teaching term in Japan through a program called Westgate, and visit from there. I'll talk more about that in another post, though.

I've seen a little bit of the Olympics, but since I don't have cable, it's been interesting figuring out how to unconventionally watch something that should be free. I think it's a basic citizen's right to watch countries the Olympics, but NBC doesn't agree with me. Also, Rio has done a splendid job of hosting the Olympics, despite all of the concern. We're only a week in, and I wish the greatest luck and appreciate Brazil for hosting.

Gaming update will come separately, of course.

How Frontier Communications is going to screw me over

Credit score; your financial IQ. It's one of those things that's useful in a handful of contexts, but is prized a little more than it should be. Luckily, I do not plan on taking out a loan in the next 10 years, as I'm flexing frugal muscles for the long haul.

Here's the deal. When I moved into my own place, I figured I would stick it to the larger cable company by going with the smaller guy, Frontier Communications, and I will pay for my insolence. They advertise a $39.99 per month 3Mbps service on a DSL connection with no contract, which is a pretty good deal. Some people get free installations and $40 is all that they pay, which I was told by the representative. After I asked him to sign me up, I was told that there was a $100 fee for a technician to come out to your house and hook up the router, which consists of connecting 2 wires. Well, smart me knows shit about computers, so I opted for the free self-install kit. I was excited for about 10 seconds until the agent saw that my apartment complex wasn't eligible for the self-install kit, but because it was the only option, my fee would be waived. Sweet! 5 days later, the friendly technician comes in and hooks up the connection, telling me that the aforementioned 3Mbps was based on how close you live to the company's station. Shucks. Ahh well, internet is crucial, so I would take whatever I could get at the time.

Installation waived? False.

I used the service for a day and found the speeds so unbearably slow that I scheduled Comcast to start their service the very next day. A week later, when my 30x faster connection was up and running, I called Frontier to cancel the service. I was prepared to pay the $40 monthly fee, chiding myself on how un-frugal it was to have two internet connections at once. 2 weeks later, my first bill arrives for $200.92. Also, the Frontier technician depot is a 15-minute walk from my house, and the $10 shipping/handling fee for the technician bringing the router is almost hilarious.

I called Frontier 4 times, using Skype, another service that doesn't work as well as it should, and 3 of those times, the agents couldn't hear me. I also had to laugh at the absurdity of having connection problems with a communications company.

On the 4th try, the agent was able to hear me, and after 45 minutes, told me that the entire $200 would be prorated for the 6 days the service was active. I have to wait 3 billing cycles to see the adjustment. That's when, 3 weeks later I get the following:

"Please be advised that your account is seriously past due in the amount of $200.92. Your failure to respond to this debt will initiate additional collection proceedings, which may include referral to an outside collection agency within 10 days of this letter."

This company is going to report me to collections? Aww, hell no. I called them back, asking if there were any notes to when I cancelled the service, and whether or not the amount was to be prorated. Nope. When I explained myself, the representative, Dean, told me that he would get the installation fee waived, and that I would see the changes in 3 billing cycles. I recorded that 25-minute phone call to use if shit gets anymore real.

In 2 weeks, it will have been 5 billing cycles since the madness began, and 4 cycles since I talked to Dean.

Since I work customer service, I have to bring up a pet peeve of mine. A lot of consumers will have an issue with a lost package or damaged item, and the company I work for will fix the mistake and apologize. A lot of people will say they got shitty customer service. I would like to say that they had a shitty customer experience. The service I provide is exemplary, and the customer service at Frontier was also nothing but polite agents, and, as I mentioned, a very nice technician. My customer experience, however, with Frontier Communications has been a fucking nightmare. I cannot dis-recommend a company any more than Frontier. Run at all costs. Save yourself, don't try and make a stupid statement like I did.

Games of 2016: Summer

June: Rogue Galaxy ($6 PSN Flash sale), Kalimba (FREE, XBL Gold), Gears of War Judgement (FREE, XBL sharing), King's Quest (FREE, PS+), Grim Fandango (FREE, PS+), Dangerous Golf ($20), Never Alone ($5, PSN Flash sale).

Rogue Galaxy has a sweet battle system

Rogue Galaxy is an action RPG that was pretty highly regarded in its PS2 generation. I find the voice acting and dialogue to be boring and corny. The women are emotional, dainty and useless, and the lead male character is a goody-two-shoes white guy. It has a neat weapon leveling system, but I haven't gotten far enough into the 80-hour-long quest to find something I really like about this game. I have pretty good patience with RPGs, being among those who didn't have a problem with how linear the first 20 hours of FFXIII was. Not sure if I could recommend this yet.

I played Gears of War Judgement like I have the other 3 run-and-gunners in the series: split screen with my best friend over a really fun weekend. This game is brainlessly fun, shooting hundreds of bullets at waves of enemies in a very violent shooter. One point I'd like to bring up is all the hate on how uncreative and franchise-y Call of Duty games are, yet Gears of War is allowed to bask in shallow glory and stupid dialogue. If you like mindless shooters, don't be ashamed and get this one!

Jump. Look. Stop. Look. Jump. Look. Stop. Look.

Kalimba is a colorful indie game that was free on Xbox Gold. The beautiful geometric graphics are pretty, and the controls are simple. The challenge is how brutal the puzzles are. You play as two characters with mirrored controls, when you press left, both characters walk left at the same speed. You can stack one on top of another, and this is especially important in co-op, where you play as 2 sets of twins who can stack really high. There are of course parts of a level that split top and bottom so that you have to negotiate terrain in two separate couples. The game is pretty hard, and I'll leave it at that.

Searching all day to find a good knight.

King's Quest is an update to the series, featuring really gorgeous HD graphics, an easy-to-follow story, and some neat puzzles to solve. The challenge is in remembering details of dialogue to know what certain characters need to progress the story. The story is narrated as an old King Graham telling his granddaughter about his adventures when he was a spry lad and boy are there loads of puns. The nature of the storytelling made me think of Princess Bride, though I couldn't tell you why. If you want an enjoyable 5 hours and have a decent memory, this is your game!

I played Never Alone in one sitting, start to finish. I didn't know what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised to have a really easy game to play with my girlfriend. The game is a very basic platformer, where each of the two characters has abilities that only they can do. The story is a combination of Inupait legends, and during the game you can pop out and watch 2-minute documentaries on parts of the culture. The Inupait are a real group of people who live in remote parts of Alaska, and their ways of life are strongly being affected by global warming. Never Alone was made more to tell its legend and educate, rather than preach about current events. The game is worth buying to support this project, and if you're looking for an easy 2-player game to share with someone who thinks Super Mario Bros is too hard (which I wouldn't blame them!).

Surprisingly, this creepy guy isn't an enemy.

Dangerous Golf has two objectives: destroy everything in the room and then put your ball into the hole. These 2 stages make for some very quick rounds, and the mechanics are dreadful. The game has you move the left thumbstick up to put, no angle, no strength, just tap it and you swing full power. Then, you control the camera sometimes with the right thumb, and you can occasionally accidentally interrupt your ball's bounce by going into the putt phase. I had been really excited for this game, seeing as Burnout Takedown and Revenge were two of my favorite games, and team Criterion had been out of work for 10 years. When I first saw the $20 price tag, my hopes dropped - I'd hoped it would be at lest $40, which would have meant a larger project. Instead, we got this, which looks cheap, has a terrible interface, and uninspired music. To make it worse was that my progress got erased in a glitch. I started a single-player mode, getting through 10 of the 100 levels. Then, I played co-op for a bit, starting over, and when I came back to my single-player progress, it was at 0. I posted about this on Twitter and the team wanted me to show them what happened, so the developer is very willing to try and fix it, but they would need to overhaul the controls and hammer out bugs to make this game worth revisiting.

July: Assault Android Cactus ($5, PS+ Flash sale), Overwatch ($48) and Doom (borrowed).

Magma gun dishes out the d.

Assault Android Cactus is a 4-player arena shooter game that is crazily fun and manic. Enemies will flood your screen as the levels dynamically change, while the music pumps-- and this makes for a kickass experience. This was my vote for March 2016's free PSN game when it was stacked against BroForce and Action Henk, which of course BroForce took the win. This twin stick shooter feels great, controls are responsive, and you will die and retry many many times. Buy this if you want a couch coop shoot em up with mad style points.

And now, the most satisfying FPS game I've played in a long time: Doom (4). Bethesda has done an amazing job of making their 3 big games in the same genre pretty distinct: Dishonored, with a slower-paced stealth, abilities and loot system; Wolfenstein, with it's medium-paced action and weapon-kill challenges; and Doom, a fast-paced, gritty run and gun. One delightful part of the latter two games is that most of the trophy hunting and completing challenges also lead to permanent benefits for your character. There's in-game incentive to doggedly throw yourself at hard challenges, like 5 knife kills in 1 minute, or Glory-Killing 5 monsters from above. Speaking of which, part of Doom's fast pace is the ability to gruesomely finish off enemies that have low health to gain life, ammo and armor back. When you do this Glory Kill, you are invincible to enemies during your 1-second animation.

imp G(l)ory Kill. Sock to the face, pull out unspecified organ.

Doom rules. There are 5 difficulties, and I played the whole game on the second one and died a LOT. None of the bosses proved much of a challenge, but getting swarmed and backing up into vicious, clawing imps will happen a lot. The story and map directions are easy to follow and secrets didn't feel cheap or obscure. I am 98% of the way to the platinum trophy in 10 days of playing. I just have to finish the first level on Ultra Nightmare difficulty: enemies can kill you in two hits, health recovery and ammo are scarce, and there are no checkpoints.

Overwatch is one of the most addictive games ever made and consumes most of my free time. I currently play Mercy, Reinhardt, Zarya and Symmetra, lately. I feel bad for Battleborn, which is the same kind of game with more features, that just had the unfortunate timing of competing against Blizzard.

Objective shuffle 2016 part 1

You know, I've been very reluctant to share my 2016 resolution, but we passed the year's halfway point, so no harm, no foul. Just after the new year, I let tradition stress me into thinking I needed a yearly goal to commit to. I spent the whole month of January with that guilt at the back of my mind of not even being able to come up with something. Losing X number of pounds or saving X amount of bucks are nobles goals, and I very much believe in challenging yourself, but I wanted something that would be a bit more interesting to write about.

Then I started getting ideas, so in February, I set out to read as much as possible. I finished a 300-page novel that month, but I didn't actually break my record for pages read until May - 450 of a 700-page novel. The difference came from of course being super engaged in the book, but mostly reading for an hour or so before starting video games, as opposed to games first. Basic prioritization.

I told myself that March would be the month for most trophies or platinum trophies earned. For those of you who don't read the other 90% of this blog, you get a trophy when you do certain things in video games, and these save to your online gamer profile. There are people who obsess over this and don't start playing a title if its trophy list looks too hard, and then there are others who just play a game for its story, regardless of trophies. I fall closer to obsession and always try to get all there is to get in a game. The biggest issue with trophies are that developers put in multiplayer trophies, and lots of games simply lose their online community within about 3 months of release. Considering I usually buy used games to save cash, there have been a few titles that I passed because so many trophies were rooted in online matches. I ended up completing only 2 games that month, which is quite underwhelming. I've actually completed more games in June!

During April, the month after my move, I set out to save as much money as I could. I discovered a local market for Indian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian (which I call "the brown people store") groceries that happens to sell vegetables and fruit by weight, which saves a shitload of cash. I did especially well at generating cash because I sold my Tesla, McDonalds and Coke stocks for about $1000 profit. I'll write some thoughts on stock in another post.

May was a weird one. I started the month thinking I'd try and release as many blog posts as possible...and released two. This challenge definitely didn't work out, but I had some other successes that I wasn't necessarily aiming for: I biked to work 20 days in the month, and replaced my bike brakes over a 2-week ordeal.

June is almost over, and I started the month by downloading an app called LoseIt. This is a calorie counting app that lets you set a target weight, and will give you daily amount to stay under. You enter your meals at any time, with a live search, and the crowdsourced list is thorough. I found several Korean brands of instant ramen and even made my own entry for Indonesian satay-flavored ramen, called Indomie. I'd initially committed to simply counting calories and set weight-loss to July or so. However, I've been able to stay about 1500 calories under the weight loss recommendation, so that means I should have lost around 5 lbs. Since I don't have a scale, this is all numbers.

Damn, bruh, slow up! Instant ramen ain't fast enough...

Another side effect about counting calories and not the more detailed nutrition is that I've eaten a lot of instant ramen. I bought a case of each ramen I mentioned for $20, and have so far been able to keep other grocery spending to about $80 this month, $20 of which was high quality coffee grounds. I took May and June's savings this month, and it went to $800 of dental work, so the investing went into my pearly whites!


My goal for July is to eat my pantry and freezer. This is easy because I've only lived in the new apartment for 4 months, and don't have much of a backlog. This should also minimize the grocery budget, as I'll just be shopping for chicken, veggies and fruit at the brown people store. I'll report back later!

Naughty Dog did it again with Uncharted: A Thief's End.

The Uncharted franchise has been a wonderful ride over the last 9 years. Each game was all the best parts of a playable movie - intense action, funny quips, likable characters and fast gameplay. Each game was something of a technical feat, usually bringing top-notch animation together with the best motion capture and great voice talent. Naughty Dog always adds details in the environment, and goes the extra mile in having storylines that are easy to follow.

Uncharted 1234 graphical evolution over two consoles.

Uncharted 4 might not have the crystal clearest graphics that other PS4 titles have, but the signature Naughty Dog detail is there. From the dynamic mud/rain splattering that dries in the sun to the the always-different bullet holes in the windshield of your truck earned in a fight that stay through the entire segments of the game. From climbing onto your brother's shoulders when trying to pass him dangling from a cliff to reaching your hand out to touch something as your character is sneaking around in a dark mansion, this game has some great touches.

Three blokes in a truck in Madagascar, shootin the breeze.

One of the newest details is when a character is telling a story during one of the free range parts, if you get out of the truck in the middle of the story and come back to the vehicle, one character will prompt the other, "What were you saying?" and pickup where the story left off. The speaking animations are actually one of the worst parts - games have been shaping character mouths for a long time now, and this game doesn't seem to do that very well.

C'mon Sully, help a brother out!

The characters are fun and vibrant in their 4th appearance, and it's nice that neither of the two main female characters are solely eye-candy. Elena very clearly keeps Nathan grounded, saves his life, and kicks ass during her stealth parts. Nadine Ross is a ruthless mercenary general who provides the muscle to main antagonist, but has her limits.  The other new character to the story, Sam Drake, is even more of a knucklehead than his brother Nate. However, despite both of them being reckless and wild troublemakers, the Drakes are very educated in their history. The brothers are great to watch interact and solve puzzles, but one of my favorite dynamics is Sully and Nadine. They had a past that may or may not have been romantic, but she still beats the shit out of Nate and Sam, and Sully isn't willing to intervene. It's pretty selfish, but interesting that Sully probably doesn't want to experience what it's like to resist Nadine Ross.

In terms of trophies, I did the platinum trophy over about 2.5 weeks and maybe 40 hours total. The first time through the story, I soaked up the graphics, had little difficulty with puzzles, and took liberties with gunplay in about 15 hours. My second playthrough was on the hardest difficulty, where I did 3/4ths of the game mostly in stealth and picked up missed collectibles. Then, I discovered that after you beat the game once, you can unlock bonuses like ultra powerful weapons any time, use them and still get the trophy for beating it on Crushing. My last playthrough was the 6 hour speedrun, which I did in one 5h45m sitting.

Sorry, Nate's fingers, I have a screenshot to take!

The Uncharted franchise is such an easy recommend for anyone who has ever held a controller, and my non-gamer girlfriend definitely enjoyed watching me play for the gorgeous graphics, compelling cutscenes, and well-written characters. I'm glad that Naughty Dog is done with the series, and hope that they develop a game in a space or fantasy setting, though I'll pretty much play and enjoy anything with their name on it at this point. Bring it on, Naughty Dog!

For the record of frugality, I sold this game for a cool $35 after I beat it, having pre-ordered it for $48 through Amazon.