Wiegraf and the War of the Lions

**warning : long text!

lately i have been playing playing finalfantasy tactics :war of the lion on the playstation portable, this is basically a remake of the original psone

game,only that the sprites and thier animation are sharper, with cutscenes remodelled with celshading and full voice-overs, not to forget wlan network play modes(which i dont particularly pay much attention with).

'final fantasy tactics :war of the lions' plays and looks like another popular tactic game on the psone, vandal hearts, except with more expanded classes

and new features like jobs...

ok, i am not going to rail on here about a review of a game that has been reviewed by the experts at gamespot and ign...

what i am actually going to do is relay an act in the game that gave me quite a tactical challenge to complete(* it took my 4 days! i only completed it on my way to work in the bus!)

the act basically follows off from when ramza(the protagonist) and his party members (delita - an NPC, and some other PCs) defeated a certain renegade knight

who aims to overthrow the nobility. ramza quite simply put is of noble birth(he's a beoulve), delita he's trusted companion is not a beoulve, he's parents

were peasants and he with he's sister - tietra were taken in by ramza's father after their parents passing.

after the defeat of this knight, the act takes us to the beoulve manse(home of the beoulve clan) where tietra was kidnapped by a rebel named gragoroth and brought to a mill, where

wiegraf leader of the rebel group finds out that his sister was killed by ramza and his companions.

now, that sets the tone for the battle that'll take place at windflat mill between ramza(he's party members were,delita,anselm(a chemist),jeger(a squire) and tiphina a female squire), and weigraf(he's party members were a chocobo, a knight and two female monks).
the battle begins with delita the ai controlled player blindly rushing into battle attacks the chocobo with a stone and get s pummelled to death with

attacks from wiegraf, the two monks and the chocobo...sometimes i wonder if the ai cant think of another thing to do rather than blindly rushing into the

forefront of battle - alone, and ill equiped(wiegraf apparently has a plethora of magic powers, likewise the two monks). i was face with a problem, do i charge into battle with my remaining charges and use anselm the chemist to raise (the stupid) delita back from the dead, doing that will only make him a more

palatable target to attacks from weigraf and co, so i went defensive. i turtled up. i used long ranged attacks and allowed the enemy to come on the offense.

it went well for sometime, until weigraf himself made the mistake of leading the offense - it was even better! what did i do? the battle objective says "kill weigraf", not the usual "destroy all enemies", so my gut tells me to kill weigraf now...and thats what i tell my sprites to do! first went jeger the squire,

one strike to the back of weigraf takes 20 meagre points from the wretch, wiegraf has a counter status,so he counters and removes a big chunk of Hp from

jeger who i heal immediately with anselm. 30minutes gone, and i have only ramza and anselm standing, with weigraf and he's two monks standing too. wiegraf

has 80points of life remaining..ramza has 70 points. i attack with ramza which takes 35 points from wiegraf - remaining 45...wiegraf counters, but he misses(whew - lucky break), the two monks attack my chemist(anselm), which means i cant heal or raise myself again if ramza dies - he's THE only one left!

then the moment i dread - weigraf lunches one of he's many magical attacks - "judgement blade"(one complaint i have is that weigraf never seems to lose any

Mp when ever he uses one of his magical powers, he has used about a dozen of such attacks i this battle), this attack takes 54 health points from ramza's 70!

now its my turn what do i do..? i have a lot of options...i could run and attack him from afar with ranged weapons, but that would mean prolonging the

inevitable, or i could just do the usual stuff - press 'home on the psp to quite the game! one option sounds better, attack him and make sure ramza get's a

good hit. so i attack,' fortune favors the brave ', whaam! what do i get? ramza gets 35points from the old war horse - not good enough! i try to hit home on the psp, but to my suprise, the battle camera zooms in on weigraf and instead of countering, he says ramza(me) fought good even though ramza(me) was a

squire....and some other facts about howramza's brothers have been the one behind the kidnappings and killings not him....ramza does not believe this,

weigraf flees with his cohorts and the battle of windflat mill ends....

after the battle, i switch to the world map, and save the bloody game quickly! then i switch off the psp, brimming from ear to ear and quite relieved! one of

the longest battle i ever fought on a videogame ends on a bus to work.

holidays, and a depressive 3d artist

heeey...hoooh!! the holidays are over, and the paymaster has his day...! the holidays were fantastic! i played games, had time to draw and play around with anim8or, kerkeythea and irrlicht... i hid the company's laptop under my bed, switched - off my cell and welcomed the bliss my bedroom offered! (*although i spent the better part of yesterday looking for the darned cell) but the holiday's were not entirely "happy" ones...i had to sleep in my old church, because of the extremely heavy rains, almost got caught by the sanitation squad(*they reminded me of nazi SS storm troopers in a cool - morbid way) the following day...and ohhhh...my goodness, the worst of it..the day i'll forever remember as a day of infamy...some brigands from hull(i am sorry..not very sportsman of me...but it pains...) brought cesc and co' back down to planet '*kitty' earth! **PS: i am going to replace a popular swear word with the cute name of kitty some weeks ago when listening to the world bookclub on the BBC, this writer agreed that most writers,artists and the like( i'd like to add programmers too)..she was actually quoted as saying she'd write best when depressed or in a bad state of the mind. aaaah..she was right. very correct ma'am...i'd always believed that too, cos..only guys(n gals) with near-schizophrenic minds can really do outlandish stuff..! people with 'normal' minds would not dare imagine stuffs or attempt stuffs...they'd be busy with 'everyday' 'stuffs', eyther(as pete and henry would say) living monotonous lives or just been normal(*what IS normal is stuff to discuss another day) anyways, to cut it short..in my state of depression (the Gunners' defeat was more than i could stomach, like Arsene did once - i nearly vomitted!), i started up the pc, and behold i stand at the door and knock, for a horrible moment i thought it was some preacher doing some telepathic(*believe me they do that now) stuff with me...but it was anim8or,his first-cousinkerkeythea and long time hunting/fishing/partying bud irrlicht i had a project using these nice softwares running up and down in my disturbed recesses for sometime, and in my state of deep depression and melancholy(from the Gunners defeat allowed me time to play with them) the images of the project in progress can be viewed here, or you can just download it here :-). it's still work in progress, with changes to models and stuff inevitable. the nature of the project is still 'in the air'... keep you guys posted.... **Arsenal got back to winning ways though, on tuesday night they thrashed hapless Porto 4 -0, with a lot chances abegging... Valentino Rossi also scooped the MotorGp championship for the year 2008 over the holidays, with Fernando Alonso of Renault winning the first-ever night race in singapore, Lewis Hamilton cam third after Rosberg which was nice...it only means he(i.e Hamilton) needs to come 2nd at least in the remain 3 races in Japan, China and Brasil. Nigeria's Independence day celebration was low-key and quite dour, which says a lot about the state of things here. a lot of soul-searching was done? i dont know...many went to church or the mosque (or shrine) to pray for our country...but do we need these prayers? afterall, 1 in a 100 (or a 1000) Nigerian is atheist, so most nigerians(if not all) believe in some God or being(s), - we are extremely religious, but less practical in the core of religion - advancing and building the mind, and helping others. we'd prefer the "pray your way out of trouble scenario" or"kill some devils haunting our country" party. till the time we realize that the devil is the very bestial part of man, the primordial and wild nature of man - part of us. then we can start owning up to our mistakes and shortcomings... the holiday, healed my paws too..i washed my first clothes yesterday... :P did i even mention my holiday was coffee soaked....oooh mama...i think i broke some records.....

holidays and isolation...

freya's day almost comes to an end, and we welcome saturn's day with open arms! this only means one thing here in nigeria....the holidays are coming....two days break(moday - tuesday) because of the sallah break, and a days break(wednesday) - our nation's independence day!!!!!

so like the self respecting cat i think i am, i am hoping take a looooooooooooooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong
cat nap!

hey hope to see you guys next week....

bad paws..and dirty laundry..

i have been living in denial...last week, i had an accident(Darned Okada wanted to use my skin as pavement redecoration!)
anyway, the worst' done...i had a few bruises and i thought my parents made big deal out of nothing - i was OK...the paw that got bruised was my right, i used my left paw to draw and use the mouse on the computer, so everything's alright....right? BUZZZZZZ!!!!!
wrong!!! i only realized the real mess i got myself into, when the start of this week i had to go to work - in odd looking clothes! my clothes were far from looking clean because...dooh...u need TWO paws to wash your clothes...i had only one paw...! X(

dreamers, wavers, programmers and artists - part 1

finally listened to the "looking glass EP" of the birthday massacre, the song that really got me going was "Shiver", was a totally synth based song...and i hope it features in their upcoming album..
*other tracks that i liked:
- nowhere
- i think we are alone now

well done guys..! i cant wait for your next material... \m/
i also got to hear new stuff from this dreamy band, autumns grey solace with tearwave
happy listening! :)

ok, this code is almost 6 months old...but then i have noticed codes and computers generally are quite sentient...just when u thought u r done with that chunk of jargon - they come back to haunt you...and you don't seem to recognize them! yes...i wrote some modules some six months ago, now going back to it, i see it was totally unprofessional - no documentation, and it looks like the insides of an alien xenomorph...! harumph!!

vista is annoying me...! i hate to admit it..but that's what m$ new baby is striving to do...! for some weeks (months i think) now i haven't worked with anim8or the latest pre-version is having issues with vista...sometimes using it on vista is like trying to drive an armored car on black-ice - with NO HANDS!!!

Ahhhh!!

It's been roughly four months i left my old job as an instructor (of two years) at an institute here in lagos( i left 31st of march and resumed 1st of April).

i have to admit, a lot has changed these four months! programming for 'money' as it seems has its challenges and drawbacks,although it pays better than being the academical coder :)
one thing,i discovered i learn a lot of stuff,like the way to code for industrial concerns,you also have to take a clients' concerns into consideration and all that..

sadly most clients here want more of the same thing,or they all want the same thing! my job allowed me the opportunity of writing codes for outlook(business contacts manager) and lately Microsoft accounting - i like these opportunities and the initial learning process was nice(had to get their SDKs) - i am still learning though and it's nice too,albeit tough..but that's it! BCM(business contacts manager) and MOA(microsoft office accounting) all deal with data entry of some sort(if you look at the big picture),and i hate(dislike) data entry of any sort or kind! but thats what the clients want. they want this data with that information and this data mixed with that information...

these four months i have falling in and out of coding..but decided the codes are not the problem but the reason for coding...i figured that i don't want to be coding like this for ever or long. i wish the day i would write codes for fun! writing codes for fun gives no restrictions, you write and play with the codes and you learn new things or try new things unhindered by a clients request - but by your own(hows that?hahaha)

for now, the clients have their day

the new job has giving me no time to try new stuffs with anim8or or irrlicht,i hope to make time for myself with these soon..

everything has not been all that bad, i got new books and novels to read(stephen किंग's top drawer),new games,and some cool new bands,black metal mostly!

to cap off a nice difficult four months,my computer at home gave up the ghost,and i have been too lazy or preoccupied to revive him - the bad thing is that most of my music folders(containing some of the most illest black metal bands ever) are in its bowels..and i have been too lazy to fix that!

thanks to technology,i got some new bands too(Graveworm and Aborym uber cool)...

the PS3 is rocking and i have a december forecast of getting myself one...although i code in C#, my loyalty lies with the playstation, i dont even like the 360!(although i got the latest Xna framework - ok the CTP,its just lieing somewhere in my harddrive - irrlicht still does it for me...maybe i'll try some Xna coding this weekend - you know,keep an open mind) but i foresee the PS3 retaining its top spot in gaming!
heck with games like MSG4 and Disgaea and the rest coming(FFXIII versus XIII too),gaming on the playstation should be rocking!

**dont forget Playstation Home too..

i'll try some WPF coding and work some magic with anim8or this weekend,who knows...maybe the fun might come back!

KEMET...

ok..being busy in the past week or so..creating meshes and props for a 3d project I am about to embark on..using anim8or(*to create the mesh),gmax(*for rigging) and kerkythea version 2008(*for rendering..)



like the title of this blog entry..KEMET,it's going to be based on ancient Egypt..the 3d-project that is..so,I am creating all kinds of props..foot soldiers..chariots..horses..rameses..apep..anubis..bast..sekhmet..and the rest..whew!









yeah..still a bit sketchy..the one on the left was(and is still) created with anim8or..and rendered in kerkythea echo. the one on the left still a little sketchy too,is supposed to be two horses pulling a chariot.. :( but after much feed back from my students,colleagues and friends on skype-twas decided that they looked a 'little' bit like donkeys.. :(

but it's all good..at least i finally started!;)

KARCY and I.M

also for some time i have also been redesigning the layout of my blog http://www.saakhmet.blogspot.com, so added some feeds from nvidia..and msn..

also added a nice GoPets gadget.. :)

yup..a nice looking cat called Karcy - Karcy the caracal..hey play with him..even give him a nice bowl of food..hehehhe..

will get back to my designing..hope to use more tools though..

some of my friends and colleagues have suggested i use tools like poser and Daz3d to simplify development..but i think i prefer using anim8or and gmax - they are free,and they allow me to create my models from the ground up..giving me greater control over the whole way my models look. :)