It's like chess. But, y'know, with aliens.

If Big Tobacco needs help finding new ways to get and keep people addicted to their products, I'd advise them to talk to Blizzard. Somehow, Blizzard consistently manages to put out games that will not settle until they have forced their way into your brain, taken root, and carved out a section with the other necessary activities; right between "breathing" and "eating." It's what Blizzard has been doing for years, and they've done it again with StarCraft II.

At some point I intend to do a final review for the game, but as of right now I feel that I'm really only qualified to post some initial impressions. In a game as massive and fully-featured as this, it'll take a lot more hours than I've currently logged to objectively judge the game. But, allow me to reiterate what the rest of the gaming community has been screaming at your face since launch: The game is good. Not mind-bogglingly (<---, holy crap, "Bogglingly" is a word?) innovative or groundbreaking, but rather incredibly polished and refined, with attention paid to even the smallest details.

I've been playing Real Time Strategy games for most of my life, and so far StarCraft adheres closely to the traditional formula of "HERE'S YER GOONS, GET SHTUFF SO YOU CAN MAKE MORE GOONS TO KILL YOUR OPPONENT'S GOONS." Which isn't a bad thing in the least, provided you enjoy that style of play. Where StarCraft DOES differ is in the finely tuned balance between the 3 different races. If you've played an RTS game in the past, you know that it really doesn't take long to identify the races/civilizations/factions/Hamster swarms that are actually good enough to be competitively viable. With Starcraft II, Blizzard takes the "Less is more" approach; only 3 races, but balanced so well that they all can become a force to be reckoned with in the right hands.

Even with so much attention paid to the multiplayer balance, Blizzard doesn't skimp on the single player, either. The campaign is lengthy and enjoyable, offering a surprising variety of mission types and objectives. Sadly, the storyline so far has been rather generic, and I'm pretty sure when it came to character designs, some Blizzard employee jumped up and yelled emphatically, "RAMBO IN SPACE," for each and every one. Myriad achievements are available for unlock in both single and multiplayer, and both single and multiplayer statistics are kept track of under a unified character profile. Plus, the replays feature is easily manageable, and the Leagues and Ladders section is easy to navigate and thoughtfully laid out.

If you're looking for a game that offers incredible depth, an unmatched competitive scene, and a satisfying single-player portion, and don't mind a sequel that sticks pretty close to the original, you could do a lot worse than StarCraft II.



Buy Starcraft II. Because Tychus Findlay needs lots of money to supplement his diet of cigars and pure testosterone.

And they said Rome couldn't be built in a day.

How do magnets work, anyways?

This weekend was a conglomeration of friends, missing bobbins, slushies, acrylic paint, sore feet, and 11-tiered cravats, otherwise known as Anime Iowa. It was a great time, with tons of friends to hang out with and a crapload of derping around. Our room was a bit confusing, with seven of us jammed into a small four-person room at a Super 8. The contents of the room could be adequately modeled with the use of quantum theory; things may or may not exist at any given time. Take Mafimano's fedora feather, for example. It went missing in the middle of Thursday evening when we arrived, and the room was scoured a couple dozen times a day. Nobody found it until it was mysteriously laying in the center of the room as we started packing up on Sunday morning. Several things hid in my Scandinavia cloak - a bobbin of brown thread, my glasses case, a second blanket. My bright yellow mini Nalgene water bottle went missing at least once every 15 minutes or so, and my computer power cord was on the other side of the room even though I'm pretty sure I never took it out of my bag.
And then there was the cat poop. But that's a story for a later post.

And now, I might finally get to the point...

I've been working on my friend's Rome cosplay for ages. I will admit, there are a few things I wish I had time to fix, like the pauldrons, the sun patterns, and the medallion velcro. They weren't exactly bad, per se, I just felt they were a bit sloppy on my part.
The Hetalia photoshoot was before the Masquerade on Saturday, at 1 PM. We woke up at 10-ish (I had been up until 5 fixing last-minute things on her cape) and then I immediately began getting everyone else ready for the photoshoot.


Everyone else:




From left to right: Prussia, Sweden, Mafimano, Austria, Canada, Denmark, and the Roman Empire is down in front.
Enjoy the B Team's derpy faces. >:Db
Not pictured: Finland and Germania. They were being awesome and manning their AA tables.


I helped Denmark put on his wig cap (he has kind of a big head, lol) and pin it into his unruly brown hair.

This hair.


(Also note the adorable Denmochi made by Cynical Pie.)

Here is Denmark without wig cap.



Not exactly bad, it just looks kinda funny to have brown hair sticking out from under the blond. Not that I'm one to talk, I couldn't procure a wig cap for Anime Detour and had a bit of brown hair sticking out from under my Prussia wig. But hey, I fixed it now.

Then I helped with the wig, which ate about a dozen or so bobby pins. And then I did his makeup.

I got him to wear concealer, 2 kinds of foundation, and guyliner. And he pulled it off scarily well, even if he has the twitchiest eyes I've ever worked with.

The end result:



Nobody say Adam Lambert. I think he's just making a funny face. I couldn't find a better picture. My bad.


Then came Sweden.



This man had 156+ ounces of Slushie at the convention. Mafimano, Denmark, and myself couldn't finish 52 ounces between the three of us. We got 3/4ths of the way through, and then Sweden actually finished the rest. But anyways.

He actually came into the bathroom (AKA the sweatshop) and said "I want to be pretty" in his mock-serious Sweden voice. There was much lol-ing, and then out came the creeper Sweden face.

WARNING: DO NOT LOOK AT THIS PICTURE IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, ARE TAKING MEDICATIONS THAT COULD CAUSE AN UNSAFE DROP IN BLOOD PRESSURE, ARE PREGNANT, NURSING, OR MAY BECOME PREGNANT.




THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU CRY.


He doesn't wear a wig (he does anime-version Sweden with his brown eyes and brown hair) so I just did his makeup. Same as Denmark's. Now, if you've ever put an eyeliner pencil next to the eyeballs of a man nearly a foot taller than you, you'd know that I was very, very nervous. He's very intimidating; if you didn't remember, I'll remind you here that he cosplays Sweden. He makes weapons. He carries around a knife or two. He can pick up Denmark and myself at the same time and haul us around. Like I said, very intimidating. I got through with one undereye, and started on the other. I'm not sure what happened, but suddenly, there is a very manly yelp, and I realized I've just stabbed him in the eye.

Here I will skip to after I stopped apologizing like Colette from Tales of Symphonia. If I didn't know how extraordinarily nice our Sweden is, I would have been groveling. I felt terrible. Also, I wanted to keep my limbs.

He blinked twice, and was fine. It was the biggest non-reaction I've ever participated in. Apparently, Sweden has hardier eyes than Denmark.

So, after another fifteen seconds of "Are you okay?" "Yes." "Are you sure?" "Yes." I finally finished that eye, a lot more careful this time around.

I gave him an encouraging (if a bit sheepish) thumbs up, and then Rome started freaking out about her costume. I had fixed a rivet just that morning, and when the paint finally dried, I helped lace her into her breastplate. Then came the pauldrons. I had about thirty seconds of pure terror when I thought I had made them way too big. I quickly realized I was trying to put them on too far forward, and because I had made them as working pauldrons, they kept sliding open to encase her upper arm.

I didn't want them to do that, and I was running out of time, so I reverted back to my duct tape talents to fix it. Thank goodness Sweden carries around duct tape with those knives. Usually, I am completely against using duct tape in cosplay, but this was an emergency, and I was fixing something that was moving and shouldn't have been.

Then I velcroed on the medallions that held the cape on. I'm so glad it worked, I did a little happy dance. Thank goodness Mafimano and Germania had a roll of extra velcro each, because I ran out.

As soon as Germania had finished Rome's makeup and wig, nobody could tell she was a she. For example, she was going into the women's bathroom when a staff member rushes her, yelling "Stop! You can't go in there!"
She proceeded to squeak until the staff member turned bright red. "Oh, you ARE a girl. Sorry." And then walked away.
She then got in the bathroom, and all of the girls stopped mid-sentence to stare at her. It was the most awkward thing she'd ever done, she told us later.

The finished product:



This is (Derpy-face!)Rome. I put him together in a day. What now, non-believers? >:D

She came running down the ramp to the photoshoot area, cape flapping. People cheered. Doves flew. It was beautiful. One girl told her she looked exactly like in the anime. I cried tears of joy. More doves flew overhead. Angels sang. Atlantis resurfaced and the bottom-dwellers there passed out some sort of Atlantean wine and threw confetti everywhere.
Or something like that.

All in all, Saturday of con was hectic and stressful and awesome. I can't believe I've made it as far as I have.

Now if you'll excuse me, Denmark has a dress I need to get working on. (Thanks, Cynical Pie, for the awesome Paint additions that were made to this photo found on the Anon Meme~)



You'd better believe it. This is what happens when you lose a bet with me.