Double Dr... uh, Bromance

Edit: (September 20,2012) There was an edit below that I meant to have earlier.

I really liked the old school street brawling games like River City Ransom and Double Dragon. Recently, I checked out some stuff online about Double Dragon Neon, then tried the trial with Jerry. Oh man was that a good move. The game is just super fun. Now I don't know what it's like alone, but with a friend, it's just great bromantic fun. It's got the same beat-em-up feel the old games have with a modern touch. I found the writing cheesy and over-the-top the whole time, which felt right and meshed well with everything else going on.

The gameplay is what you'd expect from a side scrolling beat-em-up. Punch and kick the bad guys till they don't get up, mix in some special moves, a bit of dodging which doubles your power for a short time, and there you go. Everything is tailored to work better with your bro, err, with multiplayer, including a humorous way to share/steal life from each other through giving high-fives, as well as both bros doubling their power.

Check it out, it's tons of fun, and is simply a video game. Also the music kicks ass, which can all be downloaded for free here. Or you can also pay what you want, which is nice to support people who do awesome things. Grab your bro and have fun!

More Grackles and Bad Cameras

Really bad image quality, I either need a better camera or learn how to actually use the one I have. Probably the latter. The quality is usually bad without natural light. Two male grackles foraging in the rain. They seem to like when it rains softly.



I really like the white stripe on this bird's chest.








DT3 Life and Respawning
So you know when you die in DT1 and DT3, you continue as if you had just entered the room with the exact life count from before? (Well DT1 recently puts you just above the flashing red screen threshold.) DT3 does give a bit of help. If you've got a max of 6-10 hearts, you'll restart with 2 hearts if below that. If 11-15, you'll start with 3, etc. Recently, after the current demo, that was changed to every 4 hearts that you'll restart with extra. (5-8: start with 2, 9-12: start 3) This will change again.

You know when you're in the middle of a dungeon or large field, such as those found in Gate 2, and you begin a map with 1 heart? Then you get an unmentionable amount of deaths just trying to get out of there to refill your life. I'm sure it happened to a few, I got a few e-mails and comments about such occurrences. That's not a good thing. I knew it 'could' happen, and the minimum life threshold spoken about above was there to assist with that. The problem is it doesn't help when it needs to. Sure, the game is designed around the player not getting hit, but...

3 hearts is now the minimum you will restart with after death. This won't change anything but maybe one or two health pots or Mario blocks being removed from early levels that were placed in just to assist with problems like this. As for the minimum as you move on;
3-8: 3 hearts
9-12: 4 hearts
13-16: 5 hearts
17-20: 6 hearts
This system doesn't change much (if at all) mid to end game, (Ch.10+) which works for what I want. It's simply there to help ease the early game hell that sometimes happens. It does assist with extra gate levels, which are designed (a bit) around the player saving up health.

Another DT2 LP
Raocow (or is it raocow even at the beginning of sentences?) has started LPing DT2. I uh... I think that's all that needs to be said. Quite a few are here probably because of that, so yeah. The talkhaus thread is here, which I will probably step in and comment on like the first from time to time.