Jay’s Internet Log

Upon deciding to write this, I’ve been wracking my brain to try to remember the last PC game I played, and I believe that the game was Rise of Nations, back in 2003.  Seven years have passed, and my gaming has taken place mostly on consoles and portable units, and that’s probably not going to change very much.

I recently built a rather powerful PC for video editing purposes, and I was in Best Buy this past weekend, which just happened to be tax-free in Massachusetts, AND, I had a coupon.  Needless to say, Starcraft 2 came home with me and a few hours later it was installed on my computer.  It wanted to download some sort of client which said it would take 5+ hours to download, so I let it go all night, and Sunday morning I woke up, ready to get going with the game, but instead I ended up playing Monday Night Combat for an hour.

When I actually started to play Starcraft 2, I sat down, booted up the game, and then remembered how much more advanced PC games were than most console games.  I had options to do everything, and could spawn documents and forums online from within the game.  I was impressed.  I went through the menus first and saw that all my settings were in the “Ultra” category, so I think my hardware is good to go.  I watched a few tutorials and started up the campaign, not knowing what I was doing, but the game doesn’t throw a whole lot at you at first, so it brought me up to speed in a way.

One thing I really like is how everything is explained.  If you were going to upgrade a unit, and have a few choices, the game explains it in text as well as plays a little movie showing how the unit will handle afterwards.  It’s very cool.  I’ve only upgraded my medic units, but they do a really good job at keeping others healthy now!  I am now about four missions into the game and can sense that it’s beginning to get a bit more difficult, so I have been searching online for text guides for beginners but haven’t really come across any, but maybe I just need to play through the game more.  Using the mouse is nice and easy, but the only hotkeys I’ve really learned are for clicking on an SCV, then hitting B-S to make it build a supply depot so I can have more units on the screen.

I’m a complete beginner with the game, but I’m really enjoying it and looking forward to getting better at it.  With these types of games however, sometimes I’ll get frustrated and that will be the end of it.  I hope that doesn’t happen with this one, because it’s truly awesome.  I don’t know if I plan to go online with it and actually battle other people, but the option is there, so there’s always a chance that it’ll happen eventually.  This computer wasn’t built as a gaming machine, but it seems to handle at least this game well, and this game is truly fantastic.

This article is a few days later than I had originally planned, but it’s been a busy week.  I first saw Monday Night Combat at PAX East last March, but didn’t pay much attention to it.  I noticed that the kiosk was always packed full of people, and I didn’t want to wait in the line to play it, so I kind of brushed it off.  After hearing that it was getting some good reviews, I decided to try the demo out.

The demo of the game drops you into a tutorial where you have to defend your “Moneyball” from incoming waves of easy enemy robots.  It shows you how you can upgrade your skills as well as the basics of this game type.  I was having a lot of fun, and like most demos, after a few minutes it asks you if you want to unlock the full game.  I decided to purchase it, and am glad that I did.  This is one of the best XBLA games I’ve played, even though it does have a few issues.

First off, Monday Night Combat has a futuristic game show feel to it, where you’re a player on a game show, running around shooting other players and robots.  There are 6 classes to choose from, and you earn money from destroying enemies and enemy robots.  There are just two modes available; Blitz and Crossfire.  In Blitz, you have to defend your Moneyball from incoming waves of computer-controlled robots.  You do this by setting up defense turrets and upgrading your skills while running around in a third-person viewpoint.  The controls are very good even if the buttons take a little getting used to.  If and when the robots get close to your Moneyball, they shoot at it to take its shields down, and then attack it to destroy its life bar which then ends the game in a defeat.  If you get through the waves, then you earn a win.  Crossfire is similar, but it’s an online-only mode that pits 6 players versus 6 other players, each team trying to destroy the other team’s Moneyball.  In this game mode, you can also spawn robots to help you out, and each class spawns different types of robots.  The robots mostly fight each other but you can help take them down as well.  Each time you defeat a robot, human, or turret, you earn money.  This money is used to upgrade your skills or construct new robots and turrets.  When I’m done upgrading all my skills, I usually start sending out mad waves of robots for a final push to the end.

The only issues I have with the game right now are that sometimes when in a party, you’ll get put into a game and party members will randomly be on the other team.  This usually fixes itself for the next match, but more often than not, you’ll get dropped to the main menu and have to start all over again, which is my other issue.  These are minor when you think that you’re only paying $15 for a game that gives so much.

There are many titles to unlock, but other than that, there’s not much to spend your money on other than customized classes.  These classes allow you to choose a position, and then add three perks to it, which is nice, but not mandatory, since the amount of customization is limited.  I urge all shooter fans to at least try the demo out for this game.  It includes some offline games as well as 30 minutes of time online, so as long as you don’t run into a bad match, I think you’ll have a good time.  The announcers are hysterical, and the game as a whole is a lot of fun.

During the night, Royal Princess continued her passage south following the coast of Vancouver Island.  The ship will continue to do so until around 7:30AM this morning when we will turn to port and enter the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  Vessels transiting the Strait are required to follow a vessel Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) which separates inbound ships from those outbound.  Following the inbound lane of the scheme we will make our way east towards Victoria.  Rounding Race Rocks we shall then turn north and make our final approach into Victoria.  We expect to be alongside in Victoria around 2:00PM.

This morning, I woke up early and went to the gym again.  After breakfast, we started packing, something that isn’t nearly as exciting as unpacking was a few weeks back.  We only packed for an hour as I wanted to come and sit and wait for the final entertainment show of the cruise.  I sat and posted a single post before the Internet decided to give out on me, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post anything else until after getting home.  And now I’m home.  The final production show on the cruise was very good, and afterwards we had lunch, then finished packing.  Heather and I took our luggage up to the gym to weigh it, and it’s a good thing we did as one of our bags was 52 pounds, which would have cost $100 extra.  You’ve got to love the airlines (speaking of airlines, that’s a completely different story that won’t get written up here just now).  It was funny because we had our luggage all opened and were transferring clothes back and forth between bags in the middle of the gym.  At around 2:00PM, we arrived at Victoria, British Columbia, another port I’ve never been to before.  There’s an old Maritime law that states that a ship without 100% American crew can not start and end in US ports without visiting a foreign country, so that’s why we were here today.  Someone on the loudspeaker came on and said that there was a car show in town, so Mom and Dad took off for it, while Heather and I saw a lighthouse to walk to.  As we started walking to it, down a very long, narrow pathway that descended 30 feet to either side into the ocean sans handrails, the fog started to roll in, enough so we couldn’t see much in front of us.  I found it fun.  We saw some guys fishing and within 10 seconds of saying hello to them, the conversation turned to hockey.  Yes, we were in Canada!  We had a shore excursion this night.  We went to “The Enchanting Butchart Gardens”, a tour I signed up for because Mom loves flowers, and I’m glad that I did.  Victoria itself has a plethora of potted flowers all over the city, and it smells as such everywhere you go.  The Butchart Gardens is a 55 acre area that contains some of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen.  The map has a route laid out for you to walk, and sometimes you’ll be walking down a path and all of a sudden there’s a huge garden below you.  It’s a place that I’d love to go back to given more time.  So, as I said earlier in this post, I am home now, and got home about 2:00AM local time last night.  The past 14-15 days have been some of the best cruising days I’ve ever had.  It may have been the itinerary, the ship, or the crew on the ship this time, but Princess Cruises has done it again, and I eagerly look forward to my next adventure with them.

Throughout the night, Royal Princess is following southwesterly courses along the Canadian coast of Graham Island.  In the early hours of the afternoon, we will continue on a southwesterly course with Vancouver Island on our port side.

Heather and I just witnessed what is probably our last sunset aboard Royal Princess, our favorite ship.  Princess is selling this ship to P&O early next year, and the probability of us being able to travel on her again is extremely low.  My whole family enjoys vacations on smaller ships much more than on larger ones, because we feel cramped and stressed out on the large ships.  Small ships are very personal, have larger rooms and showers, and are usually accompanied with the best itineraries.  I hope that Princess plans on keeping Royal’s sisters, Pacific and Ocean Princess.  We will always try to book our vacations on sub 1000 person ships for as long as they are available.  Anyways, so far this post has been written out of emotion, so let’s get back to what we did today.  This morning, we woke up at 8:00AM, partly because we were tired, and partly because we had to set our clocks forward an hour last night.  We forwent breakfast (I know, it’s blastphemous) and instead went to the gym.  After working out and sitting in the steam room for a few minutes, we met up with Mom who was waiting for us in the culinary demonstration.  We watched as the head chef, Maitre’d, and head pastry chef cooked up a few dishes and joked with one another.  It’s something that we always attend on the last day of the cruise, though today’s not the last day.  Afterwards, we toured the galley.  This ship has a most interesting galley.  Since it’s a very small ship, the galley is set on two floors, with an escalator between them, so junior waiters can walk downstairs, grab the prepared food, and then have a ride up the escalator into the dining room.  After the tour we had lunch, and then I took a few hours to have a couple of beers and a cigar on the balcony.  It was quite warm and I was comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. We then played Bingo and lost as we always do, then got dressed up for our final formal dinner.  Tonight I had Pheasant and Heather had Lobster.  After dinner, all the junior waiters paraded around the dining room, each holding a Baked Alaska, which is a tradition with Princess.  I don’t know if other cruise lines also do this, and honestly for the longest time, I thought it was only done in Alaska, as my first cruise ever was up here, but they do it on every cruise.  It’s Dad’s favorite dessert, and mine too!  After dinner, we quickly changed out of our formal wear, lost $20 in Roulette, and walked a few laps around the track.  As the time for the sunset neared, Heather and I went to the stern of the ship and watched the sun go down one last time.  We’ll see it again tomorrow, but the ship will be in port, so it probably won’t have the same effect as it did tonight.  That’s about it…it’s bedtime now.

Today was completely awesome.  We woke up at 5:00AM and went up to the breakfast buffet to watch our entrance into my favorite Alaskan town:  Skagway.  As I arrived onto the deck, I noticed a large Princess ship coming in behind us.  At this point I didn’t know which ship it was, but it turned out to be the Sapphire Princess.  After we docked, I recorded it docking, a process which took over 36 minutes, but I plan on speeding it up so it takes much less than that.  I hope it works.  We disembarked the ship at 7:45AM and boarded the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad to take a trip up 3000 feet to the White Pass Summit and into Canada.  I love trains, and this was a great trip, especially on the way down because the engine switches sides at the top and we ended up being the last car on the way down, so the sites were fantastic.  After the three hour ride, we had lunch, then walked around the small town of Skagway.  It still has the old western feel to it that I remember, and we bought a totem pole.  This totem pole is unlike any other we’ve seen this trip, and we met the designer of it.  He autographed it for us, which was really nice.  We visited the Sarah Palin Store and bought a magnet.  Heather tried on a really nice fur hat, but we didn’t buy it.  We also saw a Bassett Hound eating ice cream.  We saw a traffic jam, which consisted of a train and two cars.  When we got back to the ship, we saw a local man sing and tell poems about the history of Alaska.  I had the best dinner of the cruise so far.  It consisted of a pineapple appetizer, French Onion Soup, then Duck in Asian sauce, a Ribeye steak, and a Turkey Pot Pie.  For dessert I had pineapple orange ice cream.  It was great.  There isn’t a show tonight as we’re just leaving Skagway after being here for twelve hours, so instead, we’re going to bed early as tomorrow we have an early rise to hopefully view some more wildlife and glaciers.

After letting go our lines in Seward, the Captain maneuvered the ship, abeam Lowell Point and took up southerly courses back through Resurrection Bay.  Rounding Caines Head, we then continued out through the Harding Gateway and into the Gulf of Alaska.  Parelleling the Kenai Penninsula, Royal Princess followed a south westerly course towards Kodiak Island.  Entering Chiniak Bay, we made our way through the buoyed channel leading into St. Paul’s Harbour.  Once in the Harbour we made our way north towards our berth expecting to be alongside by 7:00AM.

We are sitting here waiting to watch a dance show, I think about the 1920′s but I really don’t know.  I just know that I’m saving seats in the front row while eating cheese, grapes, and crackers.  This morning we pulled into Kodiak, a port that only this Princess ship goes to.  Most Alaskan cruises hit the eastern ports, and some of them start in Seward and Whittier, but only this ship and a single Clipper ship go to Kodiak, one ship per week.  Today’s tour took us to Fort Abercrombie, an old military base on one end of the island.  This was a walking tour, and we ended up walking a few miles in the rainforest.  Lucky for us, it wasn’t raining today, but was overcast.  I’ve never seen a forest like this.  The trees are very big, but what stands out is that they have moss growing on every branch.  There’s moss everywhere, and it’s quite the spectacle.  We saw a lot of different flowers, and Mom was very happy about that.  We also got to walk around some old abandoned barracks that have been turned into a museum.  This park was very nice.  After getting back to the ship, we had a quick lunch (curry chicken and rice, pineapple, and a slice of cheese pizza), then Mom, Heather, and I walked into town.  It’s just about a mile walk to get downtown, but runs along salmon canneries, so it’s quite pugnant.  There also aren’t any sidewalks, but we made do.  Kodiak has just a single traffic signal, and I took some photos of it.  We visited the Baranov Museum and a few shops before heading back to the ship, while being sprinkled on by rain.  We are now officially headed home, as we are heading East.  Tomorrow we have a full day at sea, which are always our favorites.  I look forward to not doing anything.

During the night, Royal Princess will follow westerly courses approaching Kenai Peninsula at 6:00AM.  Rounding Rugged Island and into Resurrection Bay, we expect to pick up the Local Pilot at 6:15AM.  We will proceed northbound towards our Berth in Seward, where we will be safely alongside by 7:30AM.

We are now sitting and waiting to see a comedian.  He doesn’t start for another 45 minutes, but this waiting gives me a chance to write this up.   Today we were in Seward, AK, a port I’ve never been to before.  There’s really not a whole lot here, and I always respect ports that are barren more than those filled with diamond stores.  Today we did something that we’ve tried to do on two other cruises and never been able to; horseback riding.  One time the weather came into play, and the other time, a hurricane diverted the ship.  Luckily though, the weather here in Seward was sunny and in the 70′s, so nothing was stopping us!  We took a short van ride to the stables, signed a waiver declining helmets, and jumped up on our horses.  We took them down a road and into the woods, next to a stream, and eventually out on the other side of where the ship was docked.  We saw families of eagles and moose droppings.  We didn’t get to see any moose or bears though.  The horses went through some streams and my sneakers got soaking wet.  Heather’s horse was named Frisco and mine was named Buddy.  Our horses, especially Frisco, wouldn’t stop eating the grass and flowers.  As I saw patches of flowers, I wanted to jump off and pick them as I would in Red Dead Redemption.  It was a very fun experience, and I assume much better than if we were in Jamaica or some other Caribbean island.  After riding the horses, we returned to the ship, showered, ate a cheeseburger, then went back to town.  We walked around the shops and bought a few small knickknacks.  We got back to the ship within 15 minutes of it leaving, had dinner, and are now waiting for the comedian, listening to the really good jazz band play before the show.