A bunch of Cupcakes

Why does Penn State's schedule suck so bad? Is it too hard to ask for maybe two BCS schools a year? If not, how about no Div-2 opponents? I just feel that we can achieve all of the programs goals of having at least 7 home games and pack the stadium while also increasing the strength of schedule. Think about it. How about 2 Big East schools since we like easy opponents in our recruiting area with alternating away years. We could then have two guaranteed wins in a Div-2 team and a MAC team (Temple?). This would be hands down far better than what we've been having the past few years. Or if that is too much to ask, how about we schedule our one BCS team, preferably of higher quality (Alabama comes to mind) but even that I could dodge, as long as we then schedule a bunch of MAC, C-USA, MWC, and Sun Belt schools. This way we would at least be scheduling all Div-1 schools which is an improvement over our current system of a measly BCS school and then a Div-2 with some other non BCS schools. I don't know I'm just tired of all of the cupcakes and want to make the most out of not playing anybody and guaranteeing our wins.

So it seems that our Penn State football program really has a problem with weed and parties. Rumors are circulating that some more players were caught. I hope it's nothing serious and no potential starters, but this is getting out of hand. Someone on that teams need to take some leadership and show those kids.

I have to say that overall I'm feeling good for the team. It seems many aspects are coming together although I question the strength of the secondary after the Blue-White game. I hope they can get better and the offensive line can get better at blitzes. Quarterback play seems to be reasonable, but I feel that we lost too many and have too many hole to not lose a few. I'm thinking ten wins or so. Maybe lose to Ohio State and either Iowa, Northwestern, or MSU. Hopefully it's a good season. I know I've got a long way to go until Fall, but I'm starting to miss it. Hopefully Summer goes fast.

Valkyria Chronicles

So as promised, a brief little synopsis of my feelings about Valkyria Chronicles. So in case you are unfamiliar, it is a turn based strategy game with some real time elements that takes place during a fictitious WWII. The actual game play is great. I love being able to take my time by taking turns and how I want to spend my command points when it comes down to my turn. This is one thing I found I dislike with more recent RTS games in that I can't take my time doing stuff since there is so much to do, I always have to be doing something. I also love the real time elements in getting to control a character with cross fire actually happening. It is truly a great mix of action and strategy. The game is fairly difficult in places, but some of this is that you don't know what is coming at you. If I were to play again, I know I wouldn't have as hard a time. The game is sort of nerve racking though. I always felt the pressure of war since if I made a big mistake I felt I could lose a lot of my troops. I wish the AI would have been a little better in some places. Once you got the hang of it, it became easy to trap soldiers or make their moves worthless. Some of the Boss fights seemed like they had better AI and it would have been cool if that was always present. Most of the mission difficulty always stemmed from being outnumbered instead of being out thought. It also would have been nice if the grade you received on missions was based on more than the speed at which you performed the task. It would have been nice to get a bonus for going beyond the mission like eliminating troops.

I thought the story of the game was mediocre at best. It was a typical love story inside of a war story. There wasn't anything really exciting or new about it, but it wasn't bad either. Just totally average. The story was presented in a book format, which I had mixed feelings toward. I liked it at first because it was a cool concept and I liked the go at your own pace mentality, but some of the scenes became tedious since I had to initiate each new scene even if the last one was very short. It would have been nice to some how string scenes together better. The presentation in an anime format was superfluous. I appreciated it, but I imagine it might have sold better without it. The graphic themselves were really good. They were simplistic at times, but they got the job done and looked good. The pencil filter they had was cool for going with their book motif. Since the game was optimized for 720p and I had it in 1080p, I got plenty of jaggies but that didn't really bother me at all. The voice acting for the game was extremely good. I can't imagine Sega made their money back since there were some good talent in there. They also used a bunch of people for all of the different recruits you get in your squad. On top of being very authentic, it made the game seem real. This also made me not want to bring much harm to any of my characters since they each had a personality. The music wasn't anything great, but it wasn't grating so I guess that's good.

The game does have a New Game+ option to go back with more difficulty, but I'll pass for now. The game also had 3 DLC packs. One was just an advanced difficulty for new game+, which I won't take immediate use of. The one was another mission focusing on some of the recruits. This was a fun little mission and took some getting used to the troop layout. The last was a couple missions where you are the enemy. This was the most fun, but ultimately since each character didn't have a personality, I felt like I didn't care about them too much which kinda detracted from the game. Overall, these missions were fun and a good challenge, but I feel like since my party was weakened and taken back to an earlier level, it left me feeling weak and powerless. I didn't master the missions, but still got the feel for them. Still good fun though. There was talk of a sequel, especially for Japan. If it would come stateside despite the initial poor sales, I would grab it up in a heart beat. A great strategy RPG experience.

Weekend Ren Faire

So it's been a nice week. Kinda lazy, but busy at work and keeping busy with nice weather. This weekend I went to the Hudson Valley May Faire. It was a small Ren Faire that was close by so I checked it out. It was rather small, but it was fun. Many of the performances were good and humorous. The only main problem with the fair was the weather today. I originally planned on today since it seemed like they had more activities and I yesterday I was running errands, like going to Free Comic Book Day (Woo!). Also as of Friday, the weather seemed like it would be better on Sat. Turns out it was quite wrong. It was nice on Sat and rainy on Sun. Overall though, I'm glad I went.

I also recently saw 2 more movies. The first was Changling. It was a pretty good movie, but nothing too special. I felt like the plot was pretty predictable but everything was done well. It was a good historical drama.
The second movie was Vicky Christina Barcelona. I heard some good things but I was highly disappointed. The whole movie was rather boring. It moved along so slowly and the whole thing felt like it didn't even have a point. I also was hoping for a good performance from Penelope Cruz, and she delivered, but she was hardly even in the movie. The movie was a pretty big disappointment.

Lastly, I finished Valkyria Chronicles this weekend. Clear to say, I am very pleased with it. I hope to have a write up sometime when I get around to it. Meanwhile, I started Uncharted. So far, this is a great game and I look forward to playing it more. It is unfortunate that it is kinda short.

Guild Hero

So a quick post on some things wrapped up tonight. I watched season 2 of the Guild. Just like the first, it was a whole lot of fun and a joy. The characters are great and I think that's the biggest appeal. The jokes and situations are funny, even though I don't play any MMOs. Great stuff.
Heroes Volume 4(?) also finished this evening. It's clear that it's improving and has improved from it's low and horrible volumes 2 & 3. I like how they killed off some of the characters and feel that at times the writing is good creating unusual situations and bringing back some unusual powers. I feel that overall it's not as good as the first season, but it's back on its way up. I felt the ending was a little bit of a cop out, but they can definitely have some fun with this for next season. (Although the ice woman's recurrence was surprisingly unexpected.)
Other than that, I went to the dentist today. Good to have nice clean teeth :D I guess they'll hurt tomorrow though. One thing that came up was the possibility of braces to straighten up my teeth and fix some of my alignment problems. Although clearly cosmetic and not necessary for me since I'm only minor, it still is something to think about, especially since I'm eligible for invisalign. I still have to do a bunch of research before I make any decisions.

I Can Drive!

Just a quick post about this weekend. It was a beautiful weekend, but besides for taking a bunch of walks outside, I wasn't able to truly enjoy it, although it did warm up the apartment which is always good. Saturday I was stuck in a Defensive Driving Course for most of the day. IBM was offering it so I signed up to get a great discount on my insurance. It was mostly all common sense, but the instructor was pretty good even if he did stray off topic a lot.
I also saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno later that night. I found this comedy to be pretty good actually. Maybe walking in with a title like that sets the bar kinda low, but it passed it. I laughed at several moments even if it was a low brow comedy. The plot was totally predictable and boring, but weak plots in low brow comedies combined with retarded plots in pornos isn't going to produce something amazing.
Didn't really do much else this weekend. I wanted to beat the main plot of Valkyria Chronicles, but some of the parts took longer than anticipated. It would have been nice to go back to PSU this weekend for Blue and White, but maybe another year.