blog of alfredo

The Grasshopper Store: Even their packaging has style!

2011-08-06T15:41:00.003-05:00

So, the Grasshopper Manufacture online store opened up recently. You can buy all sorts of neato Grasshopper-related merchandise, including soundtracks, t-shirts, coasters, and iPhone cases.

As a huge fan of Suda51 and his games, I was excited, but I was even more excited to see that the rare book "Hand in Killer7" was available to purchase in super-limited quantities. I didn't care about the crazy expensive shipping cost. I jumped at this opportunity immediately. I've been wanting this Japan-only book ever since I became aware of its existence years ago.

So I ordered the book last Thursday. I had only gotten a shipping notice yesterday. And then this morning, I awoke to a knock on my door. A lady was there with a package from Japan. I was thinking, "What? Already?" I guess either someone at Grasshopper forgot to update my order's status, or Con Smith himself had delivered the package over night. I've waited much longer than 9 days to get stuff from Japan. Then again, I've never paid 20 dollars shipping before either. :P

When I opened the package, I was in for a surprise. Grasshopper goes all out in the presentation of their games, and their store is the same way! It came in this sweet Grasshopper Manufacture bag:

Inside of the bag was the book and this awesome Grasshopper-branded transparent red folder, containing shipping/contents information:

And, of course, Hand in Killer7!

I'm really impressed! It's like I got extra Grasshopper swag for free! It's great treatment for the fans!

I'm currently studying Japanese, so maybe someday I'll be able to actually read Hand in Killer7. I'll probably use it as a study aid! But for now, I'll just be looking at the pretty pictures.

Now I just need to meet Suda someday and have him sign the book!

Thanks GHM! Punk is definitely not dead. :)

Quick Thoughts on Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy (Houston)

2011-07-18T22:52:00.002-05:00

Just some quick thoughts to write down so I don't forget. I may elaborate later.

I got to dress formally for something for once. That's always nice. I wish I could do it more often.

I got 13 StreetPasses! Yay!

Oh, right. There was music, too.

Emotional. Seriously, a lot of those games were a major part of my childhood, and hearing this beautiful music brought waves of nostalgia rushing back. The video they played over the music really added to that. DAMN THAT RAINE AND LAGUNA SCENE! I'm not the kind of person to cry, but I came kinda close to breaking down from tears of joy. I need to wash this handkerchief...

I bought the DVD of the Tokyo concert after the performance. I just watched it today. It was still good, and some of the songs even sounded better than they did live, but the recording was missing one key thing: audience reactions. Hearing the people around you react to the music and visuals really makes the live experience worth it. People let out some short laughter as the cross-dressing scene popped up during the performance of "Main Theme of FFVII." This laughter was in unison with many others, myself included. We all had the same experience playing through this game, and we all share these memories together, despite most of us all being perfect strangers. That's really cool, kinda heartwarming in a way. It adds to that "emotional" thing I was talking about earlier. The same thing happened during the Chocobo medley. The minute that FFXIII scenes with Sazh and his little afro-inhabiting Chocobo buddy went on screen, the audience reacted greatly to that. A big smile spread across my face, and I'm sure that smile was shared by hundreds sitting around me.

Oh, and there was that joke the conductor made about FFXIV not being very good. Now, this concert is obviously for Final Fantasy nerds, but the music can be appreciated by everyone. That FFXIV joke was for the fans, though, 'cause we know that game, uh, didn't go so well for Square-Enix. So that was pretty funny!

For some reason I found the "Dancing Mad" segment hilarious. It's so weird to have a section dedicated to celebrating a villain: Kefka. The end of the video was literally Kefka beating the crap out of Terra in some Dissidia footage. I found that highly amusing, and I don't even like Kefka that much.

The concert "ended" with "Terra's Theme", and during the second half of the song, we watched three magitek armors walking through the snow...and the credits for the concert appeared on screen. It credited the conductor, the composers, and all that jazz. It was a really nice touch, and really solidified this as a video game concert. And after that, endless applause. Really! The applause went on forever. It was great!

Of course, it still wasn't over. The music program had one glaringly obvious omission, and everyone knew what the encore would be. The conductor knew we knew. They played One Winged Angel. Yeah, sure, whatever. The song's overdone, I prefer Liberi Fatali (which they started with, and you don't start the show with a show stopper!), but it still was a nice treat to the fans that appreciate it.

It's unfortunate that Uematsu wasn't there himself. I wonder if he hates Houston. :P Hopefully they come to Dallas next year. Not to say that I didn't enjoy my stay in Houston (thanks to Caitlin and her family!), but a shorter drive wouldn't be bad. I definitely wanna go again.

...this was post was longer than I intended it to be.

Personal Opinion: Tron Legacy is a better "nerd" movie than Scott Pilgrim

2010-12-18T18:59:00.002-06:00

I'm sure you've already read my thoughts on the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Nerds and hipsters everywhere showered that movie with constant praise. The retro video game references, the hot girls, and...I dunno, somethin' were enough to satisfy the desires of crazy people around the world. Again, there's nothing wrong with you if you like Scott Pilgrim. I just do not agree with you.

Now, Tron...Tron is the classic computer nerd movie. It's a movie about video games and computers and motorcycles made out of light. It's also really boring, but you know what? Tron Legacy is just like Tron, except not boring (if you ask me). So here I state: Tron Legacy is a better "nerd" movie than Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Of course, I am only basing "nerd" tastes on my own. So, really, maybe this won't actually apply to nerds in general. I may just be the outlier in all this. But whatever, I'm all that's important, right?

Here's what I think people like me want: they want "epic" stories and interesting mythos, fantastic locales, crazy concepts, and "teh gr4fix". Star Wars is often celebrated for this type of thing. Nerds love interesting fictional worlds and stories.

Sure, the story of Tron Legacy isn't the deepest, most amazing literary achievement of all time, but it's a story about good vs. evil. You want the good guy to win, because if evil wins, then it's gonna suck for everyone. What kind of story did Scott Pilgrim have? Some jerk wants to get with some b. If he doesn't get the girl, great, he's a jerk. He deserves it. If he does get the girl, whatever. It's not the end of the world or anything.

Fantastic locales? How about a WORLD INSIDE THE COMPUTER. Scott Pilgrim's location? Canada. Great, eh?

How about the idea of personified computer programs fighting to the death on MOTORCYCLES MADE OF LIGHT. Awesome, huh? Some jerk beating off his potential girlfriend's idiot ex-boyfriends. Okay, by now you've probably realized I'm pretty biased against Scott Pilgrim.

People praised the special effects of Scott Pilgrim. People are doing the same for Tron. Yeah, they both look pretty good, but again, Tron is a world inside the computer. A fantastic setting, and it just looks amazing. Crazy Sci-Fi crap all over the place. In Scott Pilgrim you got some anime-influenced fight scenes and cartoon effects. Don't get me wrong. If you know me, I LOVE cartoons. But...Scott Pilgrim just didn't do it for me. Tron Legacy might lose points for Creepy-Face Jeff Bridges, however.

Oh hey, remember the Zelda music and the Final Fantasy 2 bass line? LOL, THAT SPEAKS TO ME 'CAUSE I'M A GAMER. Passing references to retro video games. Whaaatever. Did you guys hear the Donkey Kong arcade noises in Flynn's Arcade in Tron? It was subtle, and little attention was drawn to it, and that's why I think it was more effective. I guess the point of Scott Pilgrim's references is to draw attention to it, so I'm not saying that's how Scott Pilgrim should've handled it. I'm just stating my preferences.

Also, people apparently loved the soundtrack to Scott Pilgrim, but really...can it compare to Daft Punk's AMAZING score to Tron Legacy? Come on, that S was DOPE. While Scott Pilgrim ripped music straight from video games in order to evoke nostalgia, Tron's music was merely reminiscent of video games, but completely original in composition. Sooo good.

So, really, what I want to say is that Tron Legacy provided a fantastical experience, presented in a unique world, and it's just...an awesome piece creative of fiction. Isn't this what nerds want? Scott Pilgrim, on the other hand, is seemingly just a bunch of references to already existing material. Yes, Tron Legacy references Tron, but that's expected considering it's a sequel. Yeah, Scott Pilgrim has the original story of guy trying to get with girl by killing a bunch of dudes she was with. I'm just saying, remove all the direct pop culture references from Scott Pilgrim, and what do you have left?

In the end, you'll probably just say, "You can't compared the two. They're completely different movies!" You are completely correct about the second part. They ARE completely different movies. Tron wants you to take it seriously. It's a sequel to an old movie with a mythos that's already been established. And Disney's backing it, so you know they're gonna spend tons on marketing. Scott Pilgrim is an adaptation of a comice series that does not take itself seriously at all. The movie's existence was mostly learned by word of mouth. I can totally compare the two, though, because I'm a jerk, just like Scott Pilgrim.

Oh yeah, and Tron Legacy didn't have a love story. Instant bonus points from me.

LIGHTCYCLES! VROOM!

Other M: The 'M' isn't for Metroid

2010-08-29T18:31:00.009-05:00

Many of you know that I've been "hot and bothered" by Metroid: Other M for a long while. When the game's first trailer was shown, I wasn't exactly sold on it...

Let's look at the trailer:

First bad sign: Team Ninja. You're giving a franchise starring a woman to the people responsible for this. Little did I know back then, that they would ruin Samus, but in a completely different way...

Second problem: Pre-rendered cutscene. They're turning this into Final Fantasy. And why does this look like anime BS?

Third problem: Samus's voice. 'course, at the time, we hear only these two lines, so I had no idea what to really expect from the voice acting in the game. I could only hope it would be better than what's here. But...it really isn't. :/

The gameplay parts looked exciting, though.

All these things brought to me one fear: This game is going to be too Japanese.

Now, Japanese stuff is usually pretty cool... but I don't want Metroid being like that. Sure, Metroid is a Japanese creation, but there's a reason why Metroid wasn't that popular in Japan, and why I didn't really start to notice the series until Austin-based developer Retro Studios made Metroid Prime, arguably the best Metroid game in the series.

Metroid: Other M is an attempt to make Metroid appeal to Japanese audiences. It seems pretty clear about that. Unfortunately, I am not a part of that audience...

Anyway, I beat the game 100%, so I think I'm qualified to complain about it right?

"Dear Diary, it's me, Samus."

My biggest complaint about Other M is how they handle the story and characters. The actual story is of a conspiracy, which is fine, but they already did that with Metroid Fusion. I thought Fusion was the first time this conspiracy would be revealed, but Other M takes place before Fusion...so...I don't know.

The way the story is told is stupid, though. Samus likes to talk to herself. She tells the story through inner monologues. Again, this kind of happened in Fusion, but at least then it was text. This time, it's told through Samus's TERRIBLE voice acting. It's a shame they didn't get Jennifer Hale to play the part of Samus again. The stuff she says is pretty dumb, too. G4's review compared it to Samus reading out of her diary, and...yeah, that seems almost spot on. This type of story-telling CAN work, as evidenced with games like Alan Wake and Max Payne...it's just terribly written, and the delivery is equally terrible.

They ruined Samus in ways other than her voice. The way she acts goes against the mental image I had of her. Her interactions with Adam are just dumb. There's a flashback where she's all like, "ADAM GIVE ME A CHANCE PLZ", and is all desperate to prove herself or something. That kind of makes sense, 'cause it's a flashback. But later, she does the exact same thing, showing she hasn't grown up at all since then. I get it, she sees Adam as some sort of "father figure", but this is Samus, the lady who's destroyed planets, exterminated entire species, and saved the galaxy many times.

What happens when she encounters Ridley in this game is just RIDICULOUS. Samus has killed Ridley many many times prior to this, and suddenly his appearance literally turns her into a scared little girl. Just watch. (Spoilers, obviously.)

It's not just that she freaks out, she also endagers the life of the black man, and we all know that is UNACCEPTABLE. Seriously, Samus, get your crap together. The boss fight wasn't even that hard.

Now, a lot of people are saying that Samus was already characterized this way in the manga... but if I didn't like it here, I probably wouldn't like it in the manga either, so WHATEVER.

"Samus, I'm now authorizing poor gameplay explanations."

Anyway, back to Adam. In most Metroid games, Samus loses all her powers at the beginning of the game as an excuse for you to explore and collect them later. This was kinda silly, but the way that Other M handles it is waaay dumber. Samus has ALL of her powers and equipment at the start of the game, she just chooses not to use them until Adam says she can. Sure, I can understand that they won't let her use power bombs 'cause they might be "too dangerous", but...the grapple beam? How is that gonna hurt anyone? And Samus's various suits... the Varia suit, for instance, protects Samus against extreme heat... but Adam won't let her use the suit until AFTER she's gone through an area of extreme heat. And her other suits also protect Samus against damage better. Why does Adam think Samus having protection would harm anything? Maybe he thinks it wouldn't be fair to his other troopers who don't have awesome Chozo powersuits.

Despite all this, Samus is alone for a lot of the game, only communicating with Adam through radio. So Samus using powerbombs or the screw attack in some remote location of the space ship really wouldn't harm anyone. It would only protect Samus. I guess Adam doesn't really care about Samus at all, because if he would just let me use the screw attack from the beginning of the game, I probably wouldn't have died so many times.

Now, I understand that this stupid "authorization of equipment" is just an excuse to limit your progression through the game so you don't start off super powerful and able to access everything in the station. On the surface, it really isn't that different than just picking up new items like in the old games. But it's still dumb. That sense of character progression collecting new abilities is gone, since Samus has them already. In the old games, the ridiculous "oh no, I lost my powers for some dumb reason" is a singular reason that only happens at the beginning of the game. Adam's poor judgment on equipment authorization happens many times throughout the game.

And it gets even dumber when SPOILERS Samus loses communication with Adam, and decides to use the Screw Attack on her own. Then later fights a boss that can control gravity, making it a difficult fight. Then right after that fight, Samus activates her gravity suit...which she apparently had all along, but decided NOT to use it on the boss that controls gravity. I guess poor judgment runs through all the characters of the game. END SPOILERS

...Graphics

The game looks good in a simple, clean sort of way. Samus is shiny, and the framerate is pretty good, aside from a few instances during cutscenes and when there's tons of stuff happening on the screen at once.

A lot of people are saying it's the best-looking Metroid game yet, but I think they forget what Metroid Prime 3 looked like. Some of the stuff in Other M looks way too simplified. At times, it felt like I was playing an XBLA or handheld game. Really, I think this would've been amazing as a 3DS title or something like that.

Oh yeah, it's a game, too.

So yeah, aside from the lame-o pre-rendered cutscenes, there's a game part, too. And...it's pretty good. Now, you may think my previous complaints against the game are invalidated with that statement, but it isn't. Team Ninja and Nintendo decided to make story a big part of the game, and since the story sucked, a big part of the game sucked. Had they not insisted on the stupid characterization of Samus and the 2-hours of cutscenes, I probably would've liked the game better.

But yeah, the game part is cool, but you really wanna hear me complain about it, don't you? Well, first thing, the controls are dumb. For some reason, Sakamoto (co-creator of Metroid) wanted to make this game control with the Wii Remote only. He wanted to simplify the controls, 'cause I guess the analog sticks that came with every Wii system is too scary for some people? I admit, they have guts for going through with this experiment by the means of an entry in high-profile franchise. I kinda wish they didn't, though.

The game features full 3D movement, but you have to use the d-pad to navigate it. It works, but I would've preferred an analog stick. In addition to that, aiming is, for the most part, automatic. You tap the fire button, and Samus will shoot at the closest thing to her...sometimes. There were numerous times when Samus would just shoot at either the wrong enemy or NOTHING AT ALL. This was mainly when I tried to shoot while jumping, causing Samus to shoot completely over whatever I wanted her to aim at. While not game-breaking, it is VERY annoying.

Also, fighting enemies is really just a chore sometimes. Enemies no longer drop health or ammo. Because of this, you lose a lot of incentive to fight them in the first place. So you ignore them and run away. Kinda dumb.

The game also features a first-person mode, which is probably the dumbest thing about the game. The only way to shoot missiles is to go into first-person mode by pointing the Wii Remote at the TV, lock-on to something with B, and then press A. When in first-person, you cannot move, other than shaking the remote to dodge some attacks, making you have to reset your aim and lock-on again if you still want to shoot your missile. It's pretty annoying that you have to rotate your controller and point at the screen in the middle of the action. I often found myself holding my controller in some weird fashion so I could go into first-person, then move around when I discovered that I couldn't lock-on to what I wanted to.

Contributing to the stupidity of the first-person mode are sections of the game that force you to look around the environment to advance the game. At seemingly random points, the game will stop and force you into first-person. You'll have to find one small, less-than-obvious detail in the environment before you can continue the game. Honestly, I got stuck on some of these parts for probably 5-minutes or more. And just thinking about how it would work in the context of the game. "Hey Samus, uh...what are you doing?" "I'm looking for something." "Like what?" "Uhh...I dunno. Lemme just stand here staring for five minutes-- WAIT, THAT EMBLEM IN THE FAR OFF DISTANCE!" With a game full of cutscenes, these parts just unnecessarily slow the flow of the game even more.

A big thing that stuck out to me about this game is that it's essentially a 3D Metroid Fusion. The way the levels are laid out (Hey, Samus, go here, and only here. We're gonna lock some doors so you can't explore elsewhere) and the silly story bits are very Fusion-esque. You even fight a boss from Fusion at one point. At some point, I wondered whether or not this was supposed to be a remake of Fusion. Fusion was an okay game. It wasn't amazing, but...okay.

And there's this one part at the very end: SPOILERS. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE BEATEN THE GAME OR NEVER INTEND TO BEAT IT During the last part of the boss fight, you end up in the boss's belly, with your health quickly draining. I tried laying some bombs and rolling around...NOTHING IS WORKING. And then I died. I died many MANY times at just this one part of the game, because I had no idea what to do. I at first thought I had glitched the game. But no, you're supposed to use your Power Bombs by holding down the 1 button until fully charged. The game never tells you you can even use Power Bombs at this point. The only time they tell you how to use Power Bombs is during the tutorial, which, for me, was over 9 hours of game time ago. I wonder how many questions about this particular boss fight will end up on GameFAQs...END SPOILERS

Mild Spoilers. After beating the game, you're allowed to go back to the space station to find something Samus says is important and "irreplaceable." That thing, my friends, is a Metroid game. During this second journey through the station, there is no story BS to interrupt your exploration. It's just you going through any area that you please, hunting for any items that you may have missed by using your newly "authorized" abilities. That is a Metroid game. There, is, however, one final story objective to complete. The cutscene that plays there is also dumb, but what happens afterwards is pretty awesome, and a perfect end to an actual Metroid game.

Music

I cannot remember a single song from this game.

The Conclusion

The story sucks. The game part is alright. Go play Metroid Prime.

"Dear Team Ninja, it's me, Samus."

Maybe The World Should've Won: My Thoughts on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

2010-08-15T11:22:00.006-05:00

Before you start the hate, I didn't think the movie was terrible or anything like that. It was entertaining at times, but there were just a lot of things that I didn't dig, ya dig? I can see a lot of you really liking this movie, which is fine! I will love you regardless of what movies you like (unless you go see Vampires Suck because you hate Twilight).

This movie is getting "OMG SCOTT PILGRIM WAS AWESOME" posts on forums all over the Internet. I will not be making one of those posts here.

Now, keep in mind that I've never read the comics, so I'm not gonna comment on how faithful it is to that, and I'm also not gonna care if my complaints will be met with "THAT'S HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE COMIC" or whatever. None of this is really all that well thought out either. I'm just writing what comes to my mind. I'm not trying to be a professional critic or anything like that.

So now I'm gonna type a bunch of stuff. Plz read. :)

The Juno Problem

Scott Pilgrim and Juno share a problem: most of the characters are unlikable. How am I supposed to care about what happens to the characters when I don't care about them in the first place? Scott Pilgrim is a jerk. Ramona Flowers is a bitch. Why should I care if they get together and become happy or whatever? Scott's friends aren't any better, as they never seem to support him until the very end. Maybe it's 'cause they also think Scott is a jerk. Scott's gay room mate? Also a jerk. Only character I really found endearing was Young Neil, and he never really said much.

"Hipster" Bait?

I'm not gonna pretend I know what the hell the actual definition of "Hipster" is. I try not to pay attention to that stuff, so maybe I'm wrong about this, but Scott Pilgrim seemed to be full of what I saw as "hipster bait."

Firstly, just look at all the weird clothes everyone wears in the movie. Scott with his nerdy t-shirts. People wearing those thick-rimmed glasses. Wristbands? I dunno. Whatever. The outfits looked weird. Maybe that's just how Canadians dress, I dunno. And just check out Ramona's appearance. I mean, yeah, it's kinda cute, but she seems to be trying too hard.

Then there's the focus on music and stuff. C'mon, more Battle of the Bands, stuff? Really? Scott Pilgrim is a bass player in a band? Of course he is. Why couldn't anyone play the trumpet or violin? :(

Oh, and there's the "retro" video game references. I guess I'm only really critical of this 'cause I'm a person that is heavily invested in video games (some may call me a "gamer"), but this really screamed "trying too hard" to me. Sure, I get it. This stuff was in the comics, too. I just don't think referencing old Nintendo games is cool anymore. Now, if they start dropping Deadly Premonition references, then I'm on board! Speaking of video game references...

A Tamer "No More Heroes"

Now, the way I understand it, the Scott Pilgrim series predates Suda51's No More Heroes. So it's not like Scott Pilgrim is ripping No More Heroes off or anything... but man, the movie plot seemed like No More Heores, only way less cool.

The plot of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Scott, nerd, has gotta fight "evil" exes to get laid.

The plot of No More Heroes: Travis, nerd, has to kill a bunch of assassins to get laid.

Sound pretty similar, right? Except when Scott kills people, they turn into coins. When Travis kills people, they turn into a cloudy mist of red blood...except in the Non-U.S. versions, in which they turn into...coins. Weird how that works out, huh?

I guess this really doesn't make Scott Pilgrim any less of a movie or anything...I just wanted to talk about No More Heroes. :P

No Black People

I guess there are no black people in Canada?

You know what I hate about action movies?

Love stories. And that's what Scott Pilgrim was: a love story. So I guess maybe that's why I have this bias against the movie. I mean, the fight scenes were kinda cool. But after Scott kills some dude, it's back to "blah blah blah, love plz." "blah blah blah, close-ups of Michael Cera's face." "blah blah blah, gay threesome." Can Scott just kill more dudes?

Also, why was Scott so hesitant to fight the exes anyway? I mean, he handled the first guy pretty well, and he was unprepared. Sure, this is the type of story that isn't meant to be analyzed like that. The story doesn't have to make sense. But this just kinda bothered me, most likely 'cause it prevented Scott from just killing more dudes.

Conclusion

At least the movie had cute girls in it.

I have to watch The Expendables now to wash my mind of the extreme nerdiness of this movie. :P

This is a blog post.

2009-09-21T08:47:00.004-05:00

Original.

Modified.

--separatorrrr--

Original.

Modified.

Further Thoughts on Persona 3: Robot Girls

2009-07-31T03:19:00.002-05:00

I just watched my sister finish Persona 3, and it reminded me of a bunch of stuff about the game...namely some stupid crap that really annoys me about it. My sister was quite annoyed as well.

You see...Persona, and I guess all the Shin Megami Tensei games are very...Japanese...and very NERDY. So like...it's a game made specifically to appeal to Japanese nerds and Japanophiles (weeaboos, if you like using that term). Now, don't get me wrong, I like some Japanese stuff, and I'm totally a nerd, but damn it, ROBOT GIRLS DO NOT INTEREST ME.

Persona 3 especially seems to cater to the nerdy, socially-awkward type. Obviously, there are the social links, which try to "simulate" socializing with people as you would in real life. But, of course, all the girls you socialize with fall in love with you, which doesn't happen in real life (unless you're totally awesome...like me >_>). And of course, all these girls fall into some weird category of some nerdy "fantasy." There's the awkwardly shy girl with glasses. There's the popular hot girl. There's the popular, hot, and smart girl. There's the hot teacher (yes, your teacher in the game falls in love with you). There's the athletic girl. There's the little girl whose parents are getting a divorce (I guess some people are into that). And then there's a stupid ROBOT GIRL. All these people fall in love with you for some reason...obviously to cater to the target audience's interest, or whatever. It's kinda creepy, and a little unsettling, y'know?

But mainly, I'm pissed about the robot girl: Aigis. She's a stupid robot. And I love robots, so you know it's bad when I think a robot is stupid. Robots don't have emotions! Why does she fall in love with you? Why did the writers feel they needed to make her such an important character? She's freaking annoying as hell.

One big thing that bothers me about her is her design. She's a robot...who is modeled as a female...and wears some big stupid bow. What kind of design for a robot is that? That's dumb, just like the stupid Terminatrix from the third Terminator movie. Robots should be cool-looking. They attempted to make Aigis "cute", but they failed to do that in my eyes. Okay, she looks alright in her school uniform, but still, she's a dumb robot. With a boring personality. Maybe if she were like a jerk, like Bender of Futurama, she'd be more interesting. Instead it's, "I want to protect you. <3 <3 <3 <3." It's like if the Terminator fell in love with John Connor. Ew.

The writers give her the spotlight all the freaking time, as if I'm supposed to fall in love with her as well. No chance in hell. It infuriates me even more in The Answer, the expansion to Persona 3. You actually have to PLAY as Aigis! And what's worse, they create a NEW robot girl character, her sister Metis, who is probably even more annoying. Metis doesn't even talk like a robot (which is explained by the plot, but it's still annoying). Again, the designers felt the need to try and make Metis "attractive", making it look like she's wearing some weird leotard, giving prominence to her boobs (why do robots need boobs?), and some dumb-looking face mask. I guess they tried to make the robot girls look "cool" as they added some stupid armor to Aigis in The Answer as well. BAH. You wanna a cool robot girl, look no further than Samus Aran...okay, she's not really a robot, but whatever.

I used Aigis once in Persona 3, then quickly disposed of her when I heard her dumb battle quotes. SHE DOESN'T EVEN SHOOT HERSELF IN THE HEAD EVOKE HER PERSONA. That's SUPER lame.

It's just dumb that they felt the need to create this stupid "female" character, when there are much better girl characters in Mitsuru and Yukari. Fuuka can go to hell, though.

Despite all I say, Aigis is a very popular character among Persona fans. BOO. I find her very uninteresting and dumb.

Now Junpei and Akihiko...those characters are GREAT, and it's a shame you cannot create social links with them. I surely have more love for these male characters over dumb robot girls.

If you like robot girls, I'm sorry if I offended you. I'm even more sorry if you're actually a robot girl. But if you are a robot girl, and you're hot, look me up. :)

The Journey has Ended: My Thoughts on Persona 3

2009-07-10T06:05:00.001-05:00

Well, at around 6 AM or whatever on July 9th, I finished the Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES. I'm not really sure when I started playing it, but I'm sure I twittered about it when I did, so you can look that up. I actually put a little more than 82 hours into the game, not including the times that I spent restarting from Game Overs.

So anyway, I'm gonna present you with some slightly ordered thoughts on the game.

"First Impression"

I first learned about Persona 3 back when it first came out in 2007 in the U.S. I think I was watching an episode of X-Play on G4 where I saw a review for it. I'm going to be honest, the game looked kinda lame at first, but then I learned one thing about it that quickly created interest: YOU SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE HEAD TO CAST MAGIC. This is all I needed to hear. I fell in love with this concept instantly. Seriously, doesn't that sound awesome? Harry Potter would be WAY better if instead of using some lame wands, they SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE HEAD.

Awesome.

However, after hearing about this, I was also informed that the game is a "grindfest", involving lots of leveling (this means fighting a bunch of monsters over and over to become more powerful for you "non-gamers") in order proceed through the game. Apparently all the Shin Megami Tensei games are like this. This was kind of a turn-off to me. I think at this point, I was pretty much "over" Japanese RPGs. So even after I went to GameXchange, inquiring about the game in which you "shoot yourself in the head to cast magic", I ended up not getting it, and then forgetting about it...

That is until a while after the launch of the site Giant Bomb. You see, on February 9th of this year, Vinny Caravella and Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb began the "Persona 4 Endurance Run", a series of videos showing their play through of the game Persona 4. The videos proved to be VERY entertaining, and eventually I thought, "Hey, if I have this much fun watching people play the game, maybe I'd have even MORE fun playing it myself!" Of course, Persona 4 is still a pretty new game, so I didn't really have the funds to purchase it. Then I remembered, "Hey, there's a game before this, right?"

I did some research, and the popular opinion was "You should play Persona 3 before playing Persona 4" due to how much more improved the gameplay of Persona 4 is. It would be very difficult to go back to playing P3 after P4. So I figured, I might as well experience that amazing "Shoot yourself in the head" game. Luckily, I did not have to buy a copy, as my friend Daniel let me borrow his copy of Persona 3 FES (which is a version of the game that includes and extra expansion to the original game/story).

So I suppose I better start talking about my ACTUAL impressions from actually PLAYING the game, rather than hearing about it. Let's get the gameplay out of the way first.

Gameplay

Persona 3 is a Japanese role-playing game, and I've played many of those before... but most of those games were Square games, like the Final Fantasy series. I had never really delved into other types of role playing games, especially not the Shin Megami Tensei series. Boy, was I surprised to find out how different the Persona series is compared to the likes of Final Fantasy.

Persona 3 is basically a combination of a JRPG and a dating sim. Yes, a dating sim. Basically, the game has its own calendar, and gives you a year to play it. Each day, you go to school, hang out with friends, then at night, you go fight monsters in a dungeon. The "hang out with friends" part is actually very crucial to the gameplay, because as you become closer to your friends, the more powerful your "Personas" become.

These "Personas" are pretty much demons that reside in your soul, your "other self." They are what is summoned whenever you shoot yourself in the head. You don't actually cast any magic yourself, that's all your Persona's doing. You can carry multiple Personas, and you can create more through Persona Fusion, which is where the Social Links (your relationship with you friends) come in. Each Social Link you gain is assigned to a specific Arcana (like that Tarot card stuff). Your Personas also come in a variety of Arcana, and the stronger your Social Link in that Arcana is, the stronger your Persona are of that Arcana as well.

The Social Links represent the "dating sim" part of the game. It's a pretty neat idea, but it's executed kind of weirdly. The Social Links are pretty much gameplay-only, and have little relevance to the story. Sure, you'll get some cool scenes while you build these social links, but they are rarely SPECIFICALLY referenced in the story, other than, "Oh hey, you made friends! YAY!" Like, you're able to make certain people your girlfriend(s), but the story doesn't really involve any of your relationships with these girls. It's not like Final Fantasy where the main character's relationship with their love interest is a big part of the game. I guess that's for the better, though, as you can pretty much make all the girls on your team into your girlfriends, which would likely result in awkwardness during team operations.

Another weird/stupid thing about the Social Links is that if you create a link with a character, and you stop hanging out with them, they will eventually "reverse" their link with you. If you do not mend this link, it will eventually become broken, making it so that any Persona of that link's Arcana is NEVER ABLE TO BE USED AGAIN. While I never actually had a Social Link break on me, I had quite a few reverses, and I was all like, "It's not my fault I can't hang out with you! I'm only, TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD." Luckily, this "reverse" stuff was taken out of Persona 4.

The Social Links only comprise some of the game. MOST of the game involves dungeon crawling: which involves going into a dungeon and fighting a bunch of monsters. So this means combat.

The combat in the game is full of things I love, and also THINGS I TOTALLY HATE. I already explained how awesome it is to shoot yourself in your head to summon your Personas. So let's talk about the stupid crap that I hate about the combat system.

Why I hate combat in Persona 3

You're Not Able to Control Your Entire Party

This is a stupid thing that was fixed in Persona 4, but I unfortunately was playing Persona 3. You are only allowed to control your character in battle. Your team mates are controlled by the computer, and man, is the computer STUPID. They will constantly be doing stupid crap that you don't want them to do.

"Hey, that enemy is strong against Ice, don't use Ice on it!" *Mitsuru casts Ice on the enemy, healing it* "WTF ARE YOU DOING!"

"Hey, I'm hurting pretty bad. Can you heal me, Misturu?" *Mitsuru casts Marin Karin on an enemy, and it fails* "MITSURU, I'M DYING."

^ That right there is a HUGE problem for one very big reason...

If Your Character Dies, It's GAME OVER

So yeah, if your teammates die, that's fine. You can always bring them back to life with a spell or an item. However, if you die, that's it. Game over. And, my GOD, THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO DIE IN THIS GAME. A lot of enemies have instant-kill attacks that they will NOT hesitate to use on you! Losing an hour of progress because an enemy got a lucky hit on your is a COMMON OCCURRENCE in this game! So frustrating, which brings me to my next point...

Luck is More Important Than Strategy

I'm not kidding. Luck plays a HUGE part in this game. You might have a really awesome strategy to beat a hard boss, but it can all go downhill real fast if one attack of yours misses. Or maybe you'll win in the end because the enemy decides to waste a turn doing something dumb, like trying to poison a character who is already poisoned. Or maybe you'll lose because your teammates decide to do something dumb, like heal themselves over you, or attack an enemy that will repel their attacks and damage themselves, or use a 50 HP healing item over a 300 HP healing spell, or decide "There's nothing I can do!" when they have plenty of debuff spells that they could use on the enemy, or BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Why I like the combat in Persona 3

You shoot yourself in the head to cast magic

The Elemental Weakness System

Now, this thing is kinda awesome, but also kinda terrible. The way it works is that if an enemy is weak to a certain type of attack, like say an Ice attack, you will get another chance to perform an attack. If you attack another enemy with another weakness, you get ANOTHER turn, and so on and so on. It's possible to finish battles in just one turn! (Which is pretty much a necessity, 'cause you can't rely too much on your teammates acting intelligently on their own.)

However, this system also applies to actions the enemy takes. This means that an enemy can kill you in one turn as well...which sucks after you spent an hour looking for a really rare item, only to find it, then get ambushed as you rush to find a save point.

Persona Fusion Can Create Some Really Badass Personas

Using the correct methods, you can pretty much create super powerful, nearly invincible Personas for yourself. I always love getting to a point in a game where I can absolutely crush every enemy with little effort...still, doing this kinda stuff requires some (a lot of) grinding.

Story

I was gonna talk about my thoughts on the story, but then come on, those are spoilers. Actually, the real reason why I'm not gonna talk about it right now is 'cause I've already spent like an hour typing all this stuff up, and going into the story would just take even longer. I'll just say, that I liked the story, and the endings (both the good and bad) are pretty cool...but there is no way in hell that I'm going to play "The Answer", the expansion to the story, because I hear that's an even bigger grindfest than the actual game.

My favorite thing about stories are the characters within them, and I think the game does a good job of creating some really likable characters. The game is all about "friendship" and stuff, after all.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Persona 3

The Main Character looks dumb. He's your typical "pretty" anime character, with dumb blue hair that covers one of his eyes. He's always wearing expensive headphones, and likes to walk with his hands in his pockets all the time. Also, every girl ever swoons for him for some reason.

The voice acting is really good (Junpei's is great), aside from a few voices, like Fuuka's, who looks like a little kid, but sounds like a much older lady.

Ken Amada is dumb. He's a little kid that joins your team, and I NEVER EVER USED HIM, even if he might have made a few boss battles easier. I don't want no dumb little kids on my team. Honestly, he wouldn't be so annoying if he didn't try to act "mature." If he was a normal little kid, I'd be fine.

The music during the last actual boss fight is awesome, and it should be, considering you gotta spend almost an hour fighting him...and you'll probably fail multiple times. >=[

A lot of people say they like the story of Persona 3's better than Persona 4's. I haven't played Persona 4, but from what I've seen of it from Giant Bomb, I like Persona 4's better. Persona 3's story is dark (obviously, since you shoot yourself in the head), but it seems TOO dark at times. I like that Persona 4 has a lot of humorous, light-hearted moments. There's only a handful of them in Persona 3 from what I remember.

Why the hell can't you create Social Links with the male characters on your team? I wanna hang out with Akihiko and Junpei! Sure, Mitsuru and Yukari are hot, but c'mon! Again, Persona 4 fixed this when they create Social Links for all your teammates. It just sometimes seems like the Persona 3 characters aren't really friends since some of them never hang out outside of fighting monsters and crap.

The "sad music" would've been more effective if it didn't play every freaking time I talked to the "Dying Young Man" social link guy. Actually, a lot of the music gets really repetitive... Some of the more emotional scenes are ruined by the music that's playing in the background...

The anime cutscenes in this game are TERRIBLE. Most of the time, it's just shots of the characters just standing in one spot, staring at something, maybe with their clothing moving due to wind or something. The intro cutscene to The Answer actually has movement, but I do not want to play through that.

I never got a chance to make the "Penis riding a chariot" Persona. :(

Kate told me I haven't updated my blog in a while.

2009-06-14T18:55:00.001-05:00

She was right.

Design II Final Project

2009-05-07T23:48:00.001-05:00

Take a Tour of Luvliest: My Animal Crossing Town

2009-05-03T23:43:00.001-05:00

Instead of writing my Art History paper, I've been playing Animal Crossing. Yes, I will likely regret this later...

But if I wasn't playing Animal Crossing, I wouldn't be able to give you this tour!

First, let's check out my hybrid flowers that I took forever to grow.

Pink Cosmos!

Purple Tulips!

Some kind red/yellow Pansy!

My apple orchard nets me lots of money! And it's right next to Tom Nook's store for easy transportation.

Now check out these custom paths I've put down to avoid killing my grass.

My nice, two-story house (with basement)!

Come into my humble...house.

Sit and view this television program with me.

The kitchen. I obviously don't belong here. :P

The second floor is...a bathroom. No whales in here.

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

Alfredo's YouTube Picks of the Week

2009-05-03T01:48:00.001-05:00

Here are some YouTube videos that I have viewed and found to be entertaining this week.

XFD. Racist undertones = hilarious. But is it really racist, or am the racist for thinking of it like that? Who cares. It is humorous.

Holy crap. Turtle power.

I actually only found this mildly entertaining, but whatever.

Dude, I effing own at this game.

I don't watch basketball, but this song is so epic.

These guys did Red Vs. Blue...and they also are not very good at Left 4 Dead. :P God, I wanna play this with FRIENDS.

This video alone made me interested in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Where yo curley mustache at?

This post is not about video games...

2009-05-03T01:34:00.001-05:00

Why do most of my entries have to do about video games? Don't I have anything else in my life worth talking about?

...Nope.

What does this say about my life? It says that I like to keep my true thoughts locked up in my head because I do not deem them appropriate for public viewing on the Internet. If I dedicated a blog entry to something stupid like my love live or something like that, it might be interesting, but it might also destroy the image I've built up as a stoic, asexual organism. :P lolol.

What do Candians know about zombies?

2009-04-29T15:59:00.001-05:00

Looks pretty awesome...but something looks off. It doesn't visually look as good as I remember Dead Rising looking. Perhaps it's due to the fact that they're not using the original engine (which went on to be used with other awesome-looking games like Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5). Instead, the Canadian developer is using its own technology to up the zombie count and use stuff like "procedural dismemberment" or something like that. So while that stuff is cool, the change in engine kinda worries me...because I really liked the way Dead Rising 1 looked.

I guess another reason for the differences is that...well, it's Canadians doing the job instead of the Japanese. Japanese and Western games always seem to have a very distinct look. Western dudes seem to focus more on pushing their technology, while Japanese dudes push the...uh.."art." This affects gameplay in a lotta ways. Like, take Lost Planet for example: a Japanese shooter. The game looked awesome, and the animation was REALLY good...but it was too good. The movements took too long, making the gameplay slower than any western shooter.

So in summary, CANADA BETTER NOT MESS UP DEAD RISING.

Time Travel Objective 1: Get Good at Fighting Games

2009-04-29T00:00:00.001-05:00

If I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self, "Get good at Street Fighter 2, so you can grow up to not suck at Capcom fighting games like I do now."

That way, I would not lose a million battle points every time I play Street Fighter IV online, and I'd actually be excited about this:

Also, I guess I'd tell myself to watch more Spider-Man cartoons so I would end up being a bigger Marvel fan to appreciate such a game even more.

First post of 2009

2009-03-04T15:52:00.001-06:00

As you can tell from my Twitter feed, I am in Drawing class really damn early. I am really bored. So I decided to update my blog. So...uh...let's make the topic "Why haven't I updated my blog?"

'cause creating meaningful content for blog entries requires actual thought and work. Twittering (I refuse to use the term "tweeting") is so much easier. The content of my multiple-paragraph blog entries cannot compare to my 140 character microblog updates...Right? I'm not even sure what I'm saying right now.

Also, there's not much to blog about anyway. I'd just blog about stupid crap about how much I hate being an art student, and how awesome Shaquille O'Neal is. Also, who honestly reads my blog? No one. I know some people (two people) read my twitter updates, 'cause it'll always show up on their feeds or whatever.

Okay, here's some stuff that I'd like to blog about, but probably won't 'cause I'm lazy:
- How the patch for Left 4 Dead needs to be patched 'cause there still some "gamebreaking" stuff.
- How awesome 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand looks.
- How potatos are really cool.
- How uhh...I dunno. Stuff.
- Class starts in 8 minutes...so my mind is off blogging right now.
- This list sucks.

lol bai

Mah Christmas Haul 2008

2008-12-25T19:44:00.001-06:00

From Keith:

Cool T-shirt with a thing on it
Eve (Wall-E) Figure

From Caitlin:

Fat (or should I say "phat") sheep plushy thing

From Jessica:

An Xbox 360 Quick Charge Kit

From The Temporals:

From The Rian's (is that how you spell it?):

From my Auntie Nancy:

$30, cleverly hidden in a cologne box! Very creative, and it actually fooled me.

From The Tacuyans

A jacket I probably won't wear (sorry, but I already have enough jackets :( )

From that other Filipino family with the two kids named Michael and Nicole (sorry, I don't know their last names):

A long-sleeve shirt that I might wear

I'd say that's pretty okay (especially considering I got an iPod Touch earlier in the year). And I just might keep that Castlevania game I bought for Jess for myself (I got her My French Coach instead, since I found it online after buying Castlevania). I also asked my mom for those 80-dollar in-ear Apple headphones, which I might get.

What am I gonna spend this 60 dollars on?

The 2008 Alfredo Awards!

2008-12-15T05:17:00.001-06:00

With the disappointment that was the VGAs, I present my own video game awards.

Street Fighter V's Story Revealed

2008-12-09T03:10:00.001-06:00

My Christmas List

2008-12-05T02:57:00.001-06:00

Is that what they call these things? You know...a list of stuff I want for Christmas, right?

Apple In-Ear Headphones - $79.00
Left 4 Dead Movie Poster Pack - $14.99
EyeTV Hybrid - $134.95
CycloDS Evolution (w/ 2 GB Micro SD Card) - $50.00
Lips Xbox 360 Game - $69.99

That's all I can think of right now...

Where's Louis?

2008-12-02T01:56:00.001-06:00

Current Game Collection

2008-11-29T20:35:00.001-06:00

Blah.

Someone stole my idea...

2008-11-23T22:38:00.001-06:00

Zelda race. C'mon, tell me this wouldn't be fun... Game is fun by itself, it can only be more fun with more people. Single player multiplayer!

"How was your weekend?"

2008-11-17T00:03:00.001-06:00

Something I like to hear...sometimes.

This weekend was alright. I did a few things:

Modded my Wii so I can play "free" games
Some of those "free" games included Animal Crossing: City Folk and Tales of Symphonia 2
Beat Gears of War 2, and played the hell out of some Horde mode
Wrote some blog entries, obviously
Grocery shopping.
Cleaned the apartment
Killed a man

So, yeah. Overall, okay weekend. I got some stuff done. However, none of that was related to school, so I didn't get IMPORTANT stuff done. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I also ordered this shirt:

Lex Luthor Wins...FATALITY

2008-11-16T05:25:00.001-06:00

Check out all the Fatalities of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe! You know, I realized that some of the Fatalities are really awesome, while others are really lame...JUST LIKE IN EVERY MORTAL KOMBAT GAME.

People need to seriously stop bitching about the lack of blood and gore in this game. A lot of these fatalties are actually pretty brutal...and yes, they actually involve KILLING the other player. The Brutalities are sometimes kinda funny, too. I like Captain Marvel's. See, the game has both violence and humor. That's what makes Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat. >=[

Everybody runs.

2008-11-14T22:14:00.001-06:00

Badass.

The Joker in MK vs. DC is pretty badass

2008-11-13T23:58:00.001-06:00

Awesome...but Shang Tsung's voice is terrible.

On another note, check out this excerpt from an Ed Boon interview on MK vs. DC:

GP: There must have been a few MK or DC characters you wished you could have included but didn't. Who were they?

Ed Boon: From the MK side, Kung Lao and Reptile. From the DC side, we had a lot of debates. Some people wanted Lobo in the game -- but I don't even know who that is!

In the words of Marcus Fenix: "Awww...COME ON!" I love Ed Boon, but seriously...COME ON!!

The REAL Simon Belmont re-emerges!

2008-10-23T17:43:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, he's only in action figure form...but he's still the real Simon Belmont! The manly one. Not Ayami Kojima's stupid, girly "rock star" Simon, nor the other stupid "Death Note" Simon.

Now let's hope the real Simon comes back in game form some day...and hopefully it'll be a good game.

Panoramic

2008-10-04T00:46:00.001-05:00

apt_livingroom_panorama, originally uploaded by jrdizon.

I don't think I did this right...but let's just call it an experiment. That's my living room, if you didn't know.

Mah living room

2008-10-04T00:40:00.003-05:00

apt_livingroom_me, originally uploaded by jrdizon.

I cleaned up the apartment today. This also involved some decoration for those barren walls. Due to how...I am, this required precise measurements with a ruler to get things aligned and spaced correctly... How'd I do?

Flickr

2008-10-04T00:35:00.001-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

The Internet fails me again

2008-09-28T12:16:00.001-05:00

Ughh...are you serious? VINCENT VALENTINE IS STILL A POPULAR CHARACTER?! How the hell did some bonus character that happens to be a lame-ass generic vampire character gain so popularity. I mean, in the game he debuted in, he wasn't even important enough to be featured in the ending of the game. You gotta know a character really sucks if he uses guns and I STILL hate him. Also, his shoes piss me off.

And Falco? He was only slightly cool in Star Fox 64, and then, he was a jerk (and not a cool jerk like House). He's not even important enough to have his own real move-set in the Smash Bros. games.

Wanderer? ...Eh, I didn't get very far in Shadow of the Colossus, but he's losing anyway.

GlaDOS? HELL YEAH. She's awesome. But I guess the Square fanboys and the Nintendo fanboys never played Portal 'cause back then the 360 wasn't known as the RPG console, the PS3 version sucked, the PC isn't known for its JRPGs, and its not the Wii. Okay, perhaps such a statement is unwarranted...but still...

GO VOTE GLADOS.

Microsoft rewards cheaters..it only took a year.

2008-09-25T22:44:00.001-05:00

Remember that Live Search Club thing? It was that Microsoft site where you could play online games for prizes, and in the beginning, people found ways to cheat, and I was one of those people. That was one year ago.

I ordered PGR 3 and Kameo and I got those earlier this year, and I thought that was the last of the prizes, as the controllers had been taken out of the prize store. So I used my leftover points to order some headsets or something. Then I later moved away to go to college.

Today, I'm visiting home, and I find two UPS packages addressed to me in the garage. I open them, expecting them to be the headsets, but they turned out to be two wireless 360 controllers! And they even come with those wireless adapters to use on a PC!

Now I wonder when my headsets will show up...

Silent Hill 5 Looks Awesome

2008-09-14T19:42:00.001-05:00

So many people are bitching about Silent Hill 5 for various reasons. One, is that it's made by an American company this time. Two, it's more action-based. Three, it has Pyramid Head. I see all these things as GOOD things.

One, we all know my stance on Japanese developers vs. Western developers. But this works even better for Silent Hill, at least I hope so. Silent Hill games are scary...but the dialogue and voice acting ruins that at times. Perhaps the American dudes can write some better dialogue and get some decent voice actors, since they speak English as a native language.

Two, I like action games. People always bitch about how Resident Evil isn't scary now that the game has good controls and gameplay. That's a load of crap. It's still scary, and it's MORE fun. I think it should say a lot if a game doesn't have to rely on crappy camera angles and unintuitive combat controls to be scary. We'll see if Silent Hill 5 delivers on that, but the videos make it look pretty awesome.

Three, Pyramid Head is awesome. "But he's supposed to represent James's blah blah blah." Shut up. There were pictures of Pyramid Head in the prison in Silent Hill 2. Pyramid Head is obviously a part of Silent Hill's history, so it shouldn't be a problem for him to appear in every Silent Hill (and Track & Field) game ever.

Four, the game looks awesome.

J.R. joins the 10,000 Point Club

2008-09-14T19:33:00.001-05:00

s3roth

It Ran to the Hills

2008-09-04T23:55:00.001-05:00

Well, the option to export Rock Band 1 disc songs for Rock Band 2 use is now available. For a reasonable 5-dollar fee, you can transfer 55 songs from your disc to your hard drive, then later delete any ones you don't want. I'll probably keep them all.

Unfortunately, there are a few songs that could not be relicensed. Those songs were Paranoid, Enter Sandman, and Run to the Hills. All I have to say is, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I loved singing Run to the Hills...but, then again, whenever I played the song with a group, one of the other band members would fail. But Rock Band 2 has a "no fail" mode! Maybe they'll add the song back in as a DLC master track, as it was a cover in Rock Band.

Enter Sandman will also be missed.

I did not like Paranoid.

R.I.P. Don LaFontaine

2008-09-01T23:44:00.001-05:00

Even if you didn't know his name, you knew him. You've seen the movie trailers...You know, "In a world..." Well, he's dead now. =[

In memory, I'll embed the video that made this man awesome to me.

It's like nostalgia in my mouth

2008-08-23T03:27:00.001-05:00

I finally found some.

IGN's best Game Scoop video yet

2008-08-23T03:24:00.001-05:00

K, I bought Bionic Commando Rearmed

2008-08-13T21:37:00.001-05:00

And, holy crap, this game is amazing, too! This month certainly is a great month for Xbox Live Arcade games!

Swinging around and shooting guys is awesome in this game. It feels so satisfying to swing right by a guy, quickly turn around, then blast him in the face. So good.

The game, however, is hard. I'm talking old-school hard. For one thing, there is no jump button, making you rely entirely on your bionic arm to not only scale levels, but deflect bullets and such. Seriously, you can't jump in this game, so even a small crate that's waste-high must be overcome by using the bionic arm to grapple a ceiling or something like that. But once you get used to the bionic arm, you can pull off some awesome moves. It's great.

I've been playing this game for hours. It's only a matter of time before I get immersed in it again.

I play too much bejeweled.

2008-08-13T01:42:00.001-05:00

80 hours, man.

I just beat Braid...

2008-08-12T21:22:00.001-05:00

Okay, maybe now I get the Braid hate...well, maybe not. The only thing that's caused me to like Braid a little less is something that would require beating the game. The thing I'm talking about is the story...

Seriously, the story is so annoyingly cryptic and convoluted, that it makes it not fun at all (at least, not to me). Seriously, the game would be much better if the ending was simply (highlight for spoilers) [Tim was actually a stalker trying to kidnap the princess, rather than save her.], but NOOO, the creator specifically said that this was wrong, probably to feed legitimacy to a stupid plot full of symbols and metaphors and stupid crap like that. That's dumb. I don't want to think too hard about a story in a puzzle game (though that would be appropriate considering the genre).

What makes this even worse is you're gonna find the "intellectuals" (or elitists, whatever) who are like, "Braid's story is easy to understand. You're just not trying" which translates to "lol, i m samrt, u r dum."

But yeah, I still like Braid. I got all the puzzle pieces, and all the achievements but one. I'm not sure if I'm going to get the stars or not (seriously, standing on a cloud for 2 hours!?). But still, neat game...as long as you don't think too hard about the story.

What's with all the Braid hate?

2008-08-12T19:10:00.001-05:00

I didn't really care that much about Braid before it came out. I saw a small preview on Giant Bomb a while ago, and I was like, "Looks neat." And that was that. Then the game came out, so I downloaded the trial, and prior to this, I hadn't had Internet access for a week, so I hadn't even been exposed to the reviews of this game yet. I played the demo, and I was amazed, and I fell in love with it. It's clear to me that I didn't fall into any "hype" for this game.

But now I get on the Internet. Yep, the critics love the game, giving the game very high scores. But the people on the message boards? Majority seems to HATE the game. I don't get it. They're also all pissed off that the game got rated so highly. I honestly don't get the hate! The only thing that could possibly put someone off is the price, and it's not even that high. I mean, I've payed more for crappier games. Just 'cause this game doesn't come with a box doesn't mean it's not worth 15 dollars. 15 dollars isn't even that much money!

Anyway, it seems a lot of people who hate on Braid compare it to Super Mario Bros. WTF? While Braid has platforming in it, it is not a platformer. It is a PUZZLE GAME. So anyone who says, "Braid is like Mario, but with crappy controls" is an idiot.

I think people are put off by the price and their misunderstanding of what the game is supposed to be. Also, they're probably ticked off at the overwhelming praise that the game has been getting...I dunno. I just find this all very strange.

Anyways, I'm gonna go back to playing Braid now. :P

Apartment Photos!

2008-08-11T22:43:00.001-05:00

Despite the fact that my camera's screen has a quite noticeable crack in it, I've still been able to take photos. Obviously, I took photos of cool stuff I've set up in my apartment.

This is my desk. I put it together myself! It's cool, I guess. I've changed it a bit since this photo was taken, though. Those speakers are no longer there, as I've moved them to the living room for the TV. I use that second monitor there to watch stuff on as I browse or whatever on the other monitor. Fun stuff, I guess.

This is the futon/couch thing. I put this together, too, but I don't think I put it together correctly. Oh well, it still works as a couch, and that's fine with me.

Here's the TV and stuff. I put together the coffee table and the two end table things. Dillon put together the TV stand, and he did it WRONG. I edited it in Photoshop, but you see those two black panels at the front of it? Well, Dillon put them on backwards, so in reality, it's wood grain or whatever instead of black. It bothers me, but I'm too lazy to disassemble it. So I'll just go get some black cardboard or something and put it over it...

I don't plan on keeping that computer there. Dillon just needs to access the Internet, and since his computer does not have wireless access, we have to put it in the living room, where the modem/router is.

K, I bought Braid.

2008-08-11T01:47:00.001-05:00

I'm not regretting it yet, so it's all good. I'm trying real hard not to look up help for the puzzles, but I got really frustrated by one, so I looked it up on YouTube. AGH, as usual, the solution seems so simple when you find it, and you feel stupid afterwards. :P

This coming week, Megadeth song for Rock Band and BIONIC COMMANDO!! :D

Denton: Day 4

2008-08-10T02:22:00.001-05:00

Obviously, I have Internet now! A high-speed 5 Mbps connection! Much faster than my old connection. I can stream stuff in HD now! ..kinda.

We also have basic cable now..and I mean very basic cable. No Nickelodeon or Discovery Channel, but I can always watch that stuff online. And we have Fox, so I can still watch House (assuming I don't have to be in class when it shows)!

My mom and my Auntie Nancy also visited today. They brought a few things from home, as well as bought me some furniture. I now have a bed, our living room has a futon (which is pretty much just a couch, 'cause I don't think I assembled it correctly, but whatever. I've also got a dresser, and some kinda coffee table-type thing, but I haven't unboxed those yet. I also cut my finger putting my bed together. I have no idea how that happened.

My appetite has also returned, after disappearing for a few days thanks to being sick. My first meal was some chicken and rice that my mom brought me. It was delicious. Also, Dillon bought some apple juice. Also delicious.

These microwavable plates that we got aren't so keen for microwave use, as one of them had a hole melted in it when I microwaved a Hot Pocket. Kekekeke.

I hope I can sleep tonight now that I have a real bed. I've pretty much been sleeping on the floor for the past few nights because the air mattress made me feel weird (and also I was sick), so sleeping hasn't really been easy since I got here.

Braid is amazing.

2008-08-10T00:02:00.001-05:00

I downloaded and played the trial. My God. It was a beautiful experience. I might actually drop 1200 points on this game... I mean, it's only 15 dollars. It seems expensive because it's a downloadable game, but as a retail game, it would be a very attractive price...

Denton: Days 2 and 3

2008-08-09T23:45:00.000-05:00

Day 2

We hit a few bumps yesterday. and I'm too lazy to explain (chasing a hamster is stupid). Today has been much better, though.
Our air conditioner is finally working today. Everything feels much better. I assembled my desk and it's real nice. Our plasma TV is pretty cool, but the component input is messed up in that it'll have some weird lines that are sort of barely noticeable, but I've hooked my 360 up to it via VGA anyway, and it looks pretty good. The display isn't as bright as I'd like it to be, but it's a cheap, Wal-Mart brand TV. Still better than an SDTV, anyway!

We've got a leak above our kitchen or something, so that's one problem we got into. We tried to set up our Internet today, but we were not able to.

And I think that's all that's gonna happen today. Not having Internet sucks. We went up to UNT today and I forgot to bring my laptop to take advantage of their WiFi. I really wanna listen to the new Bombcast...

Day 3

Terrible. At the end of Day 2, I became sick. Total times that I vomited that night: 4. This would continue 'til the end of Day 3.

I'm not sure how I got sick. I think it's related to the leak from the end of Day 2. Yes, there was a leak in the kitchen. Nasty water came down from the ceiling. Some of it must've gotten into a glass I was drinking from. Eventually, the leak go to so bad that we had a trash can full of brown water. Ick.

However, on Day 3, the leak was fixed. Unfortunately, I was still sick. Dillon went to the store (with mah money) to buy me some stuff as I lay in bed, my stomach upset, and my trash can on stand-by for...you know. It was terrible. I slept most of the day. Sometimes I woke up, feeling better, got up all excited, thinking I was no longer sick, 'til the terrible feeling came back to me and I went back to my bed and trash can. Blehh...

But here at Day 4, I'm better now...I hope.

Animal Crossing will never be the same again...

2008-08-03T00:38:00.001-05:00

Read it. All of it.

Holy crap, I must get this!

2008-08-01T04:24:00.001-05:00

Warner Home Video has announced Batman: The Complete Animated Series for the 4th November. Retail will be around $107.92. The 17-disc package will include all 109 action-packed episodes, as well as 12 creator commentaries and 8 bonus featurettes. Also included will be a 40-page collector's book including never before seen production artwork.

It's 75 bucks on Amazon, and the last day to order is September 30th...I MUST HAVE IT.

lol @ people complaining about the new Facebook

2008-07-30T15:31:00.001-05:00

Live with it or go somewhere else. Go start your own website or blog, 'cause then you can make it look however you want. It's more personal that way, too. Go do it.

XD

2008-07-30T05:19:00.001-05:00

I found this pretty funny. This is why I love the IGN guys.

Just look at Craig as he smiles, waiting for Greg to go splat. So heartless.

Also, where the hell's my Game Scoop Podcast, Daemon!??!

Semi-Nostalgia Alert: Goosebumps

2008-07-28T03:00:00.001-05:00

Remember Goosebumps? Those "scary" kids' books from back in the day? I was always curious to what those books were like, but I wasn't able to read them thanks to my Accelerated Reader (remember that?!) reading level being too high (Instead, I got to read boring books like Treasure Island. That's not sarcasm, either, as I hated that book as a kid.). Also, the covers of these books always scared me for some reason. I remember that sometimes I'd see them at a store, and try to avoid them, but eventually I'd just end up staring at them from afar due to curiosity...

Anyway, like I said, I never got to read these books, so I never knew how scary they were. So much later in life, I caught the Goosebumps TV show on Cartoon Network...man...they were terrible thanks to terrible acting and ridiculous stories. But still, I wanted to know what the books were like. Well now I do, thanks to Blogger Beware: The Goosebumps Blog!

This site summarizes the many Goosebumps stories, while also providing humorous commentary. This crap isn't scary at all! But it's hilarious to read about it, and the guy behind this blog is a genius. Seriously, I spent at least three straight hours reading this site. So entertaining. Check it out.

Here's an example of how this stuff goes down:

#04 Say Cheese and Die!

Questionable Parenting:
Greg's dad almost kills his entire family by not paying attention to the road, then harps on them for complaining. But he's earned that attitude. After all, he's driving A NEW STATION WAGON, MOTHER****ER!

Crimes Against Fashion Alert:
Proving that RL Stine should never be allowed to dress a child, Shari appears at various intervals in the book sporting a yellow jumper, various shades of leggings, and crimped hair. Did Stine learn everything he knew about how kids dressed from Square Pegs?

Vague Word Choice So As Not To Infringe On Name Brands Alert:
Greg's brother works at Dairy Freeze, the group of friends follows the adventures of a gang of superhero mutants known as the X-Force, and since Polaroid is a name-brand, the camera is described in excessive detail as a self-developing camera.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
There are some all-time stupid ones in this book, but I'd be bereft in my duty if I didn't report on:
Ch. 9/10:
Greg's brother wants to know... ARE THERE ANY MORE POTATOES?

Great Prose Alert:
"His hand trembling, his mouth hanging open in disbelief, Greg goggled at the photo."
That's not a typo, he goggled.

Also, reading some summaries of this guy's top-ten best Goosebump books have also shown me that R.L. Stine actually wrote a few legitimately good stories every once in a while. It's quite surprising.

I'm now a Leopard user

2008-07-26T03:53:00.001-05:00

I've upgraded from OS X 10.4 Tiger to OS X 10.5 Leopard. It's neat. Here's my desktop. Not much has changed, but my menu bar looks neater. :P

I changed my Facebook Profile Picture

2008-07-22T18:22:00.001-05:00

I am now conflicted.

2008-07-18T04:55:00.001-05:00

Which is my favorite movie of 2008? Wall-E or The Dark Knight? Both were amazing. Agh.

Oh God..NOSTALGIA

2008-07-16T05:24:00.001-05:00

I was reading this topic on LUE about how "Thomas the tank engine is the creepiest thing ever." So I just had to look this up...

It makes me feel kinda sad inside... =[

Also, this

There, now I'm better. :P

Dead Rising Wii?!

2008-07-16T02:59:00.001-05:00

WTF IS THIS?! I wanted Dead Rising 2, but this could be just as good as that. Is it a sequel? A remake? A spin-off? I MUST KNOW. I MUST HAVE MORE DEAD RISING!!

Sony E3 Conference Stuff

2008-07-15T15:18:00.001-05:00

Yay! God of War III trailer, though it was short, it had Kratos being badass...by just standing there and saying one sentence. I'm not being sarcastic, either. Kratos is badass.

MAG? Looks ambitious. Hopefully it won't turn out to be LAG.

The Little Big Planet presentation was awesome. If only Will Wright was the one speaking instead of...I don't know who that Sony guy's name was.

I think MK vs. DC Universe looks better than DC Universe Online, but they're totally different kinds of games. :P

Nothing else stands out in my mind. Again, I don't own a Sony system, so I don't really care that much.

I think Microsoft had the best conference out of the 3. They actually had some cool gameplay demos, and not just a bunch of trailers.

Now there's the rest of E3...And I guess I'll have to stick with crappy G4 to watch the other conferences online. ><

Ubisoft at 4:30 PM, Capcom at 6:30, Activision at 10:45...I think...I hate timezones.

Oh yeah, I wanted a hard drive

2008-07-15T12:40:00.001-05:00

And Nintendo didn't announce one. Damn it.

Semi-Live E3 Blog

2008-07-15T12:13:00.003-05:00

I'm watching IGN's live stream. I don't even have G4 on right now, so I'm probably behind by at least three minutes, but whatever.

WTF, that's not Reggie.

Shaun White Snowbording

I don't care 'cause I sold Wii Fit and my Balance Board...plus, it's not a Nintendo game.

Iwata

Finally, a familiar face...and he speaks much better English than the Square-Enix guy.
Too bad he's not talking about anything that's interesting right now
...yay, pictures of old people playing video games...
He's still talking about boring stuff. I'm browsing other sites 'cause I'm bored
YES! DESTROY THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIER!!!
C'mon. Tell me more about MotionPlus!
I bet all the Nintendo fanboys are enamored by this boring stuff
OMG, HIDEO KOJIMA is not on stage. Iwata is still there, talking about boring stuff
YES! KATSUAY EGUCH! ....I'm assuming he's an Animal Crossing guy, yep, "Creator of Animal Crossing." Hell yes!

Animal Crossing: City Folk

Yep, looks like Animal Crossing on the Wii...
YES! HALLOWEEN AND NEW YEARS ARE BACK!
THE CITY! THERE'S A CITY!!! THERE ARE CARS AND AUCTION SITE
An academy to find out what other players are doing
Gracie has a store
MII MASKS FOR YOUR CHARACTER!
You can send messages to Wii Message Board
A NEW PERIPHERAL: WII SPEAK, a microphone that sits on the sensor bar?
VOICE CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People are fishing together and talking about stuff with each other!
...only 4 people on screen at the same time...
Doesn't look that different from the other Animal Crossing games
My sound just died.
I'm not sure what he's talking about right now, 'cause the sound is being dumb
Okay, it's back
Okay, that presentation is over
Not much mention of online play...
Yay, Reggie's here!

Reggie

Animal Crossing coming by the end of this year with WiiSpeak
Blah, boring NPD sales. Whatever.
Booo, more boring Nintendo "Lol, we pwn" speak. Of course, I expected this.
BREAKING NEWS, NINTENDO'S GAMES SELL, even the crappy ones.
More breaking news! Wii outsells other consoles! :O
So boring. Why can't they get Will Wright to do these charts?
OMG, HALO FOR WII-- no, that would be exciting, and it's still boring

19 third party games have exceeded 400,000 units...that seems kinda low

Ugh, another chart that says, "Wii sells more." Stop bragging, damn it.

Only 3 new games to be shown. :P

Star Wars: Clone Wars

The normal crazy smiling people waggling their remotes to gameplay footage
Doesn't look all that interesting

Rayman Raving Rabbids

Raving Rabbids TV or whatever

Call of Duty: World at War

Ugh, the Wii Zapper
The best-looking game out of these 3, but it's a multiplatform game from someone who's not Infinity Ward
Firs Wii gameplay footage. Looks better than COD3 Wii, at least

Okay, that was all third-party stuff, so we'll see first party stuff later, I assume.

Not Reggie

Ugh, more charts, but this time, DS instead of Wii. My sound is messing up, but I don't really care 'cause it's boring stuff.
Just turned on G4 'cause IGN was messing up
and still more boring stuff
lol, new GTA game...for the DS
I bet all the Nintendo fanboys who hate GTA will love this
And then they'll complain that there's no Wii version

Wii MotionPlus

Finally, though I'm watching this on G4, so I'm gonna have to turn around instead of typing.
New Wii Sports game: Wii Sports Resor: comes with MotionPlust
I'm gonna stop talking and watch.
Yay, a fetch game with a dog. lol, POINT THE WII REMOTE AT THE SCREEN PLZ!
JetSki game...honestly doesn't look as fun as Wave Race
YES, SWORD DUELING
I Now this is what I'm talking about. Looks like 1:1 sword movement
To bad he's chopping log and not people.
Now they're whacking each o ther with sticks
That looked pretty cool, but no blood or chopping off limbs, unfortunately
One more experience available this holiday...no MotionPlus stuff in this one...

Wii Music

And it's Wii Music! Looks pretty neat. He's playing the drum set with the Wi remote and Balance Board. But it's not like it just sounds like he's banging on stuff randomly.
Miyamoto is playing the Sax with the Wii Remote
Yay, MIDI quality music :P
Okay...so basically, the song plays itself, you just act like you're playing it at your own tempo...uhh...yeah. I'm not buying this "game."
Yay, they mention F-Zero...'cause it's a song in the game
Okay, honestly, as a big Nintendo fan, this is really lame. It's like those keyboards that play a preset song when you press any key. Try mashing keys on those things and listen to how silly it sounds.
Whoa, more than 4 players at a time. That's neat. Shows potential for other games.
They're playing the Mario theme song, just by waggling! Woo.
So it's a more casual version of Rock Band/Guitar Hero. Well, at least the hardcore Wii Fanboys have Guitar Hero: World Tour, probably at Activision's conference.

The End

Kind of a disappointment, but E3 isn't over yet (it hasn't even begun). Sony's conference is later today, but since I don't own a Sony system, I probably won't blog that. I'll watch it, though. I expect cool things from them, too.

At least there's Grand Theft Auto DS! That's pretty cool news. Wii MotionPlus also has a lot of potential, but they, unfortunately, did not demonstrate that much of it. I guess I'll be buying WiiSports Resort. And I want more info on Animal Crossing and WiiSpeak...

Aww. Harmonix knows I love them.

2008-07-14T19:19:00.001-05:00

A while back when, I used to post a bit on the Rock Band forums (before it became a haven [hell] for whining about the week's DLC). There was this mod there that started a "Community Project" to show appreciation for Harmonix's work. One of these was a large banner filled with people's created RB characters. At least one of my characters made it on the banner.

Here's a portion of the banner. See if you can find one of my creations...

See it?

Bam.

Why Rock Band 2 will kick ass

2008-07-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

Feature list here. Setlist here.

Highlights

World Tour mode, now online, simplifies the best of gameplay from the original Rock Band by fusing Solo Tour and Band World Tour modes and cranks it up a notch with an all new collection of opportunity gigs, challenges, cities, venues and hirable staff
Battle of the Bands mode challenges players to go head to head against other bands in constantly refreshed contests* created by Harmonix (*internet connection required)
Quickplay makes it easier than ever to get in and jam without hassle while allowing for new prefab characters or customized characters that can play on any instrument plus lets you make your own set lists and organize your song lists in a variety of categories (genre, era, etc.)
Backwards compatibility with all Rock Band downloadable music content released to date
Disc Export Feature gives owners of the original Rock Band the ability to export most of the Rock Band disc tracks and upgrade them into Rock Band 2 gameplay--the first time ever in videogame history!
The Rock Band 2 soundtrack will feature over 100 songs - with over 80 songs on disc plus an additional 20 bonus tracks which will be made available for free download this fall
Megadeth :P
Eye of the Tiger :P
the Rock Band music library will feature more than 500 songs by year’s end
Fender Stratocaster Controller takes on a new authentic look plus adds a reinforced strum bar, quieter buttons, wireless functionality and a built in calibration tool that automatically sets your AV setup to an ideal setting for maximum rock.
Drum set goes wireless while also featuring quieter, velocity sensitive drum pads and a metal reinforced pedal.
Cymbal Expansion Pack is a straightforward but amazing upgrade to the Rock Band 2 drum set featuring add-on cymbals.
ION Drum Rocker, a real electronic drum kit that functions as a game controller, brings the Rock Band fantasy to life featuring a simple substitution that takes the drum kit from a controller to a real instrument. (also, 300 dollars, lol)

Why do people only care about MS, Sony, and Nintendo at E3?

2008-07-14T17:33:00.001-05:00

The EA Press Conference is happening right now, and only G4 has a live stream of it, and the live stream sucks and doesn't work very well. Why couldn't IGN and Gamespot do a stream as well? And how come no one on gaming message boards seem to know that EA is having their conference? And why is no one talking about the new RE5 trailer? It seems, no one pays attention to anything at E3, unless it's a part of Microsoft's, Sony's, or Nintendo's conference, and it's annoying. ><

I wanna see the Dead Space and Mirror's Edge gameplay demos (I'm sure they'll release trailers later, but those aren't the same as gameplay demos). Rock Band 2 might also show up!! But I cannot watch these things 'cause G4 (and everyone else) sucks.

Update: Even with this crappy stream, I heard Peter Moore make a joke about pausing the game during the Tiger Woods demo. XD

Update2: Well, I ended up watching a stream OF G4's stream, and it was more watchable, strangely enough. I caught a few cool things, I guess (Left 4 Dead looks pretty awesome). id showed something, but I have no idea what 'cause the camera just showed the audience (and I got to see Will Wright in the crowd :D). Now everyone online is, of course, acting like E3 was disappointing, as if E3 was over already. lol.

Semi-Live E3 Blog

2008-07-14T12:51:00.001-05:00

I'm watching

Fallout 3

Looks neat

Resident Evil 5

ZOMG, RE5 ONLINE CO-OP!
REAL-TIME WEAPON CHANGE! HELL YEAH!
Friday, March 13th, 2009
Where's Dead Rising 2!?!?

Fable 2

Peter Moleysadlfkjsnf
Trailer or something, reminds me of Harry Potter 'cause there is a bird flying
Poop (literally)
Dog
Yay, more online co-op
October 2008
I don't really care about Fable, but I guess it's cool

Gears of War 2

Trailer thing
Cliff Bleszinski...HE'S HOLDING A RED WIRELESS 360 CONTROLLER
More co-op demoing! Woo!
lol, texture pop-in 1 second into the demo
lol, wtf, the IGN stream restarted the demo. So now I'm even further behind "live"...but oh well.
Lancer has a different shooting sound effect. Sounds "heavier"
Eff this blogging stuff. I'm just gonna watch
ZOMG, YOU CAN MOUNT REAVERS AND BRUMAKS :D :D :D
HOLY CRAP! 5-player co-op "Hoarde" mode. Essentially INVASION from UT2004!
November 7th, 2008

Marketing Crap

blah blah blah
This "Don Matrick" guy is pretty boring, though I don't know how he compares to previous Microsoft guys, as I've never actually seen Peter Moore or Jeff Bell first hand.
"360 will outsell PS3" lolz, don't even mention the Wii, of course
Xbox Live stuff, blah blah blah.
BTW, there's a Rock Band 2 COMPLETE track list on IGN right now. It actually went up a while ago. I didn't read all of it yet, but I did see MEGADETH on there. :D
More TV stuff on Xbox Live Marketplace. Whatever.
"On Xbox Live Now" A bunch of old movies and stuff. Yeah, I don't care!
more HD movies, blah blah blah
Growth and innovation = ?
I bet this is where the "Avatar" stuff comes in

The New Xbox Live

There you go. That stupid Avatar crap.
Wow, looks like the new update changes the dashboard ENTIRELY. Wow
Avatars apparently replace gamerpics on the gamercard.
Ugh, they look so ugly.
Wii fanboys are probably really pissed right now, though. :P
I'm sorry, I can't get over how UGLY they are!
Miis > Avatars
Booo, avatars show up EVERYWHERE, spreading their ugliness!
ALL OF MY FRIENDS MUST CREATE COOL-LOOKING AVATARS, I don't want ugly crap on my Dashboard
Sharing photos with people. Boooring.
Finally, some game-related stuff with "Xbox Live Primetime": "gameshow" stuff. Do I have to buy this stuff?
New "Games" channel.
WTF, ANOTHER UNO GAME!!?!?!
XBLA stuff, maybe this will be good.

Xbox Live Arcade

Geometry Wars 2!!!

IS THAT 4-player CO-OP!!!?

Galaga Legions

Sequel to Galaga (...finally?)
Basically, Pac-Man Championship Edition, but with Galaga. Neat

HOLY CRAP! GLADOS IS TALKING!

NEW PORTAL GAME! "Portal: Still Alive" for XBLA! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG :D :D :D :D :D

South Park XBLA game, I guess...Neat?

More Boring Crap

Netflix on Xbox Live...'kay.
You can watch Netflix movies with other people...online...actually sounds cool, but stupid :P

Shane Kim talking about stuff

Ewww, now they're showing Avatars of the speakers ><
GTA IV DLC available THIS YEAR
Yay, Rare games!

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts trailer thing
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise trailer. I still need to try the first.
HOLY CRAP! BANJA KAZOOIE (N64 game) COMING TO XBLA!

That stupid movie trivia game again (Scene It), but this time, WITH UGLY UGLY AVATARS!

"You're in the Movies"...WTF is this?

Actually looks like it could be pretty fun. But I'll need the camera, apparently
Wait, nevermind, these are basically EyeToy games
Girls is dancing, audience isn't reacting, I bet she feels silly
The movies it makes using footage of you playing the games looks pretty cool/funny, but I can see it getting old after a while
Okay, it comes with the camera...still ain't buying it.

Booo. Microsoft is a flip-flopper. Last year, they showed Rock Band. This year, they're showing Guitar Hero. >=[

Stuff we already know so far, but I expect some surprises
Okay, a new screen shot of the music creator
Here come the new announcements!
REM track pack...okay
Uh-oh, here it comes...Metallica? Ah, new album from them for both GH3 and GH:WT. Interesting. But what's this mean for Metallica on Rock Band?
That's it? No trailer? No gameplay demo? Bah

Lips

WOO! Trailer!
They hoooked up a Zune to the 360...does this mean we can use our own music!?
"This holiday"
Woo! INIS (Ouendan) guy (and his ugly Avatar)
YES! YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN MUSIC!!!!!!! I WILL BUY THIS
...looks almost exactly like SingStar, though.
I don't know who this person is (Duffy?), but they're singing some song I've never heard
ROCK BAND 2!!!

Rock Band 2

Harmonix guy takes the stage...WITHOUT AN UGLY AVATAR! WOO!
Entire set list...small text on screen. People laugh. Whatever. It's already on IGN.
Blah blah blah, stuff we already know
Bob Dylan, huh? Cool.
AC/DC, we already knew that, though
MEGADETH! (though I already knew that, too)
RB1 DLC compatible...yeah yeah.
HELL YES! IMPORT RB1 DISC SONGS (but he said "most of them", not all of them... hmmm...

Don Matrick or whatever is back, this time with an ugly Avatar

One final guest: President of Square-Enix, along with an ugly Avatar

Woo! Japanese-accented English! I love it.
"America is awesome" or something. I can't really understand him, and I'm half-not-paying attention
Stuff we already know
Infinite Undiscovery, September 2nd, I don't care right now
Star Ocean, Spring 2009. Okay
Star Ocean gameplay trailer on XBL Marketplace. I'll wait for someone to upload it to YouTube or something
The Last Remnant footage...let's see if it's awesome...hum, ugly anime-ish guy. "THE POWER OF REMNANTS" A guy that looks like Chris Jericho. Another ugly anime guy. Nice graphx, though....and logo. That's it? Bah. 11.20.2008
Last Remnant is also on PC? A JAPANESE RPG ON PC!?! Heh, only PC announcement so far :P
No Final Fantasy XIII announcement, of course. Oh well

Don Matrick again (Am I spelling his name right?)

Square Enix Guy (I thought it was Shane Kim at first ><) says one more big announcment

Big Announcement

WHY AM I NOT GETTING DIRECT FEED?!?!?
I can only see footage on a small screen...
Some text I can't read
Flying Airships.....okay
More text I can't read
Obviously this must be some kind of JRPG
More text I can't read...WAIT, is this Star Wars? ...Oh SHIT IT'S FINAL FANTASY XIII.
Did they forget this was the Microsoft Press Conference?
More text I can't read
End Trailer, "Final Fantasy XIII" crowd cheers
Xbox 360 logo
Neat
OMG, HIDEO KOJIMA IS ON STAGE-- just kidding. :P

And that's it. Conference over. I can see the G4 guys down there on the bottom of the screen. WTF? Is that three red lights on the screen?

What the hell, Nintendo?

2008-07-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

E3 hasn't even started yet, and now I see this.

Nintendo's upcoming Wii MotionPlus accessory for the revolutionary Wii Remote controller again redefines game control, by more quickly and accurately reflecting motions in a 3-D space. The Wii MotionPlus accessory attaches to the end of the Wii Remote and, combined with the accelerometer and the sensor bar, allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player’s arm position and orientation, providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion. Every slight movement players make with their wrist or arm is rendered identically in real time on the screen, providing a true 1:1 response in their game play. The Wii MotionPlus accessory reconfirms Nintendo’s commitment to making games intuitive and accessible for everyone. Nintendo will reveal more details about the Wii MotionPlus accessory and other topics Tuesday morning at its E3 media briefing.

And Nintendo's conference is TOMORROW. Such a tease, damn it!

lol, CAD

2008-07-14T10:52:00.001-05:00

Pre-E3 Post

2008-07-13T23:48:00.001-05:00

Well, Microsoft's Press Conference is tomorrow, so I guess I better post my hopes for them, and I might as well do it for the other people, too.

Stuff I'm hoping for from E3, organized by company:

Nintendo

Animal Crossing with awesome online and no friend codes (not going to happen)
Storage solution (hard drive) for Wii
New Zelda (futuristic just to piss off fanboys)
Something awesome that will appeal to the "hardcore gamer" (something that's not Kid Icarus)
New handheld/DS redesign

Microsoft

Lips (yes, that karaoke game. If being able to use your own music is true, then I'm definitely buying this)
Motion controller
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (I want something to truly convince doubters that this will be an awesome game)
I dunno..new community features for Xbox Live or something

Sony

I dunno. Whatever.

Capcom

Dead Rising 2, plz.

Harmonix

Guess

Pre-Pre-E3 Post

2008-07-11T18:11:00.001-05:00

I'm posting this to remind me to write a Pre-E3 post.

I wish I were a real drummer: Rock Band 2's "Premium" Drum Set

2008-07-11T18:05:00.001-05:00

I want one of these. It's the limited "premium" version of the Rock Band 2 drum set, which can also be converted to a real electronic drum set. It looks really cool. It's at 300 dollars. Yeah, not exactly what I'd want to pay for what I'd use only in Rock Band, but I'd still like to have it.

See, if I were a real drummer, I'd have a REAL use for this, and it'd probably less silly to spend 300 dollars on it. Plus, I'd probably be able to deal with how much room it will take up. :P

Holy something-or-another, Batman!

2008-07-10T09:33:00.001-05:00

I just realized that The Dark Knight is only a week away. It seems like I've been waiting forever for this movie...

In other news, the first official trailer for the Max Payne movie is out:

Looks alright, though the black dude with the stupid accent was...stupid. Also, it needs more of the Max Payne theme music ('cause it had exactly zero of it). But it's got a lot of other stuff that a Max Payne movie needs: slow-motion action (yay for shoot dodging), snow, and metaphors.

I have high hopes for this movie...but history says that I'll be disappointed. Oh well.

Do you accept change?

2008-07-08T03:54:00.001-05:00

'cause I'm obviously changing things around here.

Square Enix has a new game out...FOR THE IPOD

2008-07-08T03:14:00.001-05:00

It looks awesome. From what I gather, it's a tactics games that uses your songs to create soldiers. Stuff happens like a soldier will level-up depending on how many times you listen to the song it was created from.

Unfortunately, it only works on newer iPods (and not iPod touches). I've got a 2nd gen iPod Nano...which means it doesn't work on mine. =[

I hear Zac Effron will play Light in an American Death Note movie.

2008-07-08T02:42:00.001-05:00

I don't know how reliable this site is, but I'll roll with it for the sake of a blog post.

Honestly, I think he does look like Light...as long as he's not making a stupid face (and it seems majority of the pictures I see of him have stupid faces). But can he act? Can he act CRAZY? 'cause Light's freakin' crazy, and that's what makes him awesome. I honestly didn't really pay attention the one time I "watched" High School Musical, so I don't know how this guy is as an actor.

So who would they get to play L? Sam Jackson? Nah, I think he'd make a better Ryuk, though since Ryuk would probably be CG, it'd be better to get the English anime guy to do him.

Also, Shia Labeouf as Matsuda, plz. :P

And some weaboos would say that an American Death Note movie is stupid and shouldn't happen. I disagree. I'd love to see an American Death Note movie. It couldn't be any worse than the Japanese one, which wasn't terrible, but was no work of art either.

This is how the movie should end up being:

I always wanted an excuse to use this.

New Video: Cell Phone Review - Sanyo Katana

2008-07-06T02:06:00.001-05:00

Cell Phone Review - Sanyo Katana

The Keroppi Menace

Yeah, I'm still messing around with special effects.

MK vs. DC Universe looks even more awesome

2008-07-05T03:55:00.001-05:00

On Gametrailers, you can watch the latest episode of GametrailersTV, which has a LOT of gameplay footage of MK vs. DC. And holy crap, I think it looks awesome.

Sure, it's no Soul Calibur, and this game won't be at the elite gaming competitions out there, but I don't care. It looks fun, damn it. I love Mortal Kombat. I love DC. I'm gonna love this game. Believe it or not, I had fun with Deadly Alliance and Deception (never played Armageddon), so if this game plays anything like those, then I'm gonna be satisfied. Like I said, I'm not expecting Soul Calibur or Tekken or even Dead or Alive (and anyone who is/did probably doesn't like Mortal Kombat in the first place).

Actually, there's one thing that could disappoint me...if Lobo isn't in this game, I will be pissed.

I can't wait 'til E3!

The DC Animated Universe - The Greatest Animated Continuity Ever

2008-07-04T00:13:00.001-05:00

The DCAU consists of:

TV Shows

Batman: The Animated Series

Superman: The Animated Series

The New Batman Adventures

Batman Beyond

Justice League

Justice League Unlimited

Films

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub Zero

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman

Static Shock, The Zeta Project, and some online flash cartoons are also a part of the continuity, but I don't care about those.

But all the above things are awesome (except for maybe Mystery of the Batwoman, 'cause I haven't seen it yet), and made even more awesome because they all fit together in the same continuity. From Batman: TAS to Justice League Unlimited. It's all related. Everything that happens is canon to the story. And all the shows and movies are just great quality, well-written, and very enjoyable to watch.

Like the title says, I believe that the DCAU is the greatest animated continuity ever. This tops your silly anime series and your seasons of Family Guy and The Simpsons and blah blah blah. I don't think anything will ever beat it.

I will make it a goal to someday legally own every part of the DCAU...but I guess I'll wait 'til I get a Bluray player and wait for all these shows and stuff to be released on Bluray. :P

Batman vs. Kira

2008-07-03T20:30:00.001-05:00

From LL:

Batman wins after Light writes down Bruce Wayne, because it isn't that hard to figure out that is Batman's secret identity, and it doesn't work, because Batman is his real identity.

Just as keikaku.

Hancock - Not so good

2008-07-02T06:14:00.001-05:00

Yeah...it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that good, either. I thought it was gonna be about Will Smith tearing crap up! And it was! ...for like half-an-hour. Then there was this stupid plot twist and bleh.

Go see Wall-E.

Gotham Knight: Huge Disappointment

2008-06-30T22:18:00.001-05:00

It reminded we why I don't really watch anime that much. One of the stories in the movie was your typical "guys just standing around talking" animes. How boring. Also, none of the stories felt all that well-written. I guess I've just been spoiled by The Animated Series and the other DC Animated Universe shows.

There's this one story in Gotham Knight in which kids tell different stories of Batman, each one with a drastically different version of Batman. Sound familiar? Yeah, TAS did it, too, and they did it much better.

The one with Deadshot was cool, I guess.

But all in all, I prefer the DCAU stories to this stuff. I mean, I spent the last three days watching as many episodes of Justice League as I can, and the writing in those shows is just awesome. And the animation, while simpler, is better...'cause when people talk, they don't usually just stand around. >=[ Also, they don't make Bruce Wayne look like Light Yagami.

I think the Special Edition of Gotham Knight comes with a few episodes of the TAS (including the original kids' stories one), so at least the people who buy that version will get some awesome animated Batman goodness. :P

While I guess Gotham Knight wasn't really bad, it just pales in comparison to the other animated Batman offerings.

Let's hope the Dark Knight doesn't disappoint either. Maybe I should lay off watching DCAU for a while. It's just soooooooo good!

Wall-E is my favorite Pixar movie

2008-06-27T20:27:00.001-05:00

And the best movie of 2008 so far. Go see it, damn it.

Whatever happened to Rollerblades?

2008-06-24T19:12:00.001-05:00

I never really learned to use inline skates. It's obviously not something that I've come to regret.

I just watched Justice League: New Frontier

2008-06-21T18:43:00.001-05:00

Pretty good. Gotham Knight needs to hurry up and come out! July 8th!

What I want in Rock Band 2

2008-06-20T22:56:00.001-05:00

Details have been revealed for Guitar Hero: World Tour. Yes, it is a Rock Band rip-off, but it's actually got quite a few new features over Rock Band, plus some good peripherals. But I have faith that Harmonix will step it up again with Rock Band 2... and if they don't, I will be disappointed. But here's what I think Harmonix needs to do with Rock Band 2.

Compatibility with Rock Band 1 DLC. First and foremost, THE most important thing. I'm lazy. I don't wanna take the Rock Band 2 disc out to play Rock Band 1 songs that are already on my hard drive. Somehow, GH4 will be compatible with GH3 DLC, which doesn't make that much sense because GH3 was guitar-only...but yeah, I'd say backwards compatibility with RB1 DLC is a shoe in. I'd also like them to take it one step further and let you import all the on-disc RB1 songs onto your hard drive for use in RB2. Then I could just throw the RB1 disc away...or sell it or something. Then Rock Band 2 could technically have the largest initial selection of music available for a music game.

Improved peripherals. Personally, I don't plan on buying any new instruments (aside from a new guitar for bass) for Rock Band 2, and, of course, the old instruments should be compatible with the new game. but other people would love to see the instruments be improved. Obviously, the GH4 instruments look very impressive, and they have that new touch-senstive crap on the guitars, and the velocity-sensitive and quieter drumpads. It's clear what Harmonix needs to do with their instruments: improve the guitar strum bar, quiet the drum pads, strengthen the kick pedal, and make the drums more portable. Other improvements could be making the fret buttons better (I don't really have a problem with them, though they are a little clacky), make all the instruments wireless, and maybe make the cymbals look like cymbals to compete with the GH drumset. I don't want them to add more pads to the drums, and touch-sensitive necks could be neat, but not necessary. Velocity-sensitve drumpads fall in the same category. Maybe Harmonix should team up with a quality hardware company (like Nyko or something) to make their instruments if they're not up to it themselves.

Online Band World Tour. I'm really just starting out with the most popular requests, rather than my own personal requests, but it makes sense. Let us form bands online and progress through World Tour from...all over the world! I think that's all I need to say about that.

Fix/simplify the profile situation. I hate it how I can't use my created characters when playing multiplayer unless the controller that's signed in with my profile is the band leader. Just put all created characters in one pool that any profile or guest can access.

Online band vs. band. Quite obvious.

More character/band customization options Again, obvious.

Recored replays and YouTube support. Now we're getting into stuff that might not be realistic, but totally awesome. Lots of people like recording videos of their playthroughs of songs. But not everyone has capture equipment. Halo 3 started this on the 360, so I think every game needs it now: let us save replays and let us share it with others online. The YouTube thing, I'm talking about, comes from my experience with the Spore creature creator. The Spore CC lets you record a video, then directly upload it to YouTube through the game itself. No capture equipment required! So I think Rock Band 2 would be awesome with this kinda feature. This also leads me into another thing I think that would be awesome...

Let us make music videos! Skate let you record skate videos, and that fits well with the skateboarding culture. Music videos fit well within in the music culture! Rock Band's visual presentation already resembles a music video, but letting us have more control over it would be awesome. Like, my band could play through a song, the session is recorded, and then we can play around with camera angles, lighting, animations, video effects, and neat stuff like that. Also, let's remove that obtrusive fretboard with all those silly colored notes on it. Those would be fine for regular gameplay videos, but this is a music video. I wanna see the virtual band playing the song. Perhaps the vocalist's voice could also be recorded and played back over the original vocals. Then, of course, with the hopeful built-in YouTube upload feature, we could upload this directly to YouTube. Oh yes, this would be awesome.

Better online community features. I was sorely disappointed with the Rock Band "online community", which basically just featured a forum, band pages with no pictures of your band that you have to update with stuff manually, and leaderboards. I hear SingStar PS3 has some awesome community features. Basically, I want MySpace (or Facebook for the sophisticated ones) for Rock Band. And I want band pages to be automatically updated with your progress in the game. Like, if the last song your played was The Touch by Stan Bush, then your page would say something like, "Recent Shows: The Touch" and it'd show your score up there or something. I'd also like it to automatically generate photos of your band and upload them to your page, similar to how the loading screens look in Rock Band 1. Yeah, this kinda stuff would be awesome.

Song creation. I personally don't care about making my own songs, but Guitar Hero: World Tour will let you create songs, and I see that as a good way to finally play some awesome F-Zero tracks that other people arrange. So if I wouldn't have to buy Guitar Hero for that, than that'd be cool. Of course, I'd also like to see some improvements here, like maybe adding the ability to add vocals to your song. I think I've heard the reason GH4 isn't doing it because of legal problems of copying other bands, but really, I'm sure most people would rather listen to the real band sing a song that they'd be willing to pay for the originals. But I'm no lawyer, so I dunno how all that would work. But if other people could play ASDFLL..Ka;k23's latest hits, including vocals, then I think it'd be pretty cool.

Spectator mode online. Maybe I'm just weird, but I like to watching other people play Rock Band. Perhaps a spectator mode online would let you watch a band perform in real-time. Maybe let you talk to the band while they're playing (of course, the band with specify to allow spectators or not), or have camera support to watch them playing on their plastic instruments (while they're naked probably). 'course, I don't know if this would be a laggy nightmare or what, but I just think it'd be really neat.

And that's all I can think of right now. If Rock Band 2 had all of this stuff, then I'm sure it'd kick the crap out of Guitar Hero: Rock Band.

Rules of The Game

2008-06-18T15:33:00.001-05:00

Now, if you're already playing the game, you just lost.

If you're not playing the game however, you're about to start!

Rules

To know The Game is to play The Game. You can never stop playing and you can never win.

To think of The Game is to lose The Game. You must announce your loss out loud by saying "The Game", "I lose" or other variants.

Not announcing that you lost the game is considered cheating. You're not a cheater now are you?

If someone asks you what The Game is, you are required to tell them the rules.*

After losing the game, you have a grace period of X number of minutes (variable) to clear your mind of The Game and focus elsewhere. After then, you are in play once more. This is an optional rule to keep people from losing constantly and having to announce the fact constantly.**

J.R.'s Notes

* I'm always courteous enough to warn you that you have to play once I tell you, so I usually give you the choice to know the rules or remain ignorant of them. But since you're already reading this, you're already playing, so tough luck. :P

** This is how my group plays The Game. The number of minutes is 10, and immunity is granted to all those who hear your announcement of loss. Yeah, some people like to play without immunity, but whatever. I like it better this way.

Nintendo fanboys really are in their own little world

2008-06-18T15:08:00.001-05:00

A world where voice chat is bad. A world where waggle is good. A world where Activision is the second-coming of Jesus. Seriously, WTF?

Not only do they think Guitar Hero is the awesomest thing ever, and think Guitar Hero: World Tour will be the bestest music game ever (They've heard of Rock Band, they've just never played it), but they're looking forward to Call of Duty: World At War. Yeah, you know the one. The one that's NOT by Infinity Ward. The one that's BACK IN WORLD WAR II. Yeah, they think it's gonna be the most awesome FPS on the Wii ever (and their standards are low, since they like Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, and they ignore Metroid Prime 3).

I bet they're also looking more forward to the next Tony Hawk game than they are Skate It. In fact, I've seen so many people trash Skate on Wii boards, and then they say they've never even played Skate. WTF?

Nintendo fanboys are encouraging companies to whore out their games, by making crappy ports for the Wii, and they seem to be discouraging original titles: they made a big uproar about Capcom's Spyborgs when it was announced, and there's also a lot of hate for The Conduit. It seems all they want is crappy ports of 360 games. They want companies to cash in, as they say, "THEY'LL MAKE THE MOST MONEY ON WII, SO THEY SHOULD MAKE A WII VERSION" even though the Wii version would suck in comparison. Some game developers don't want their work tarnished by a lesser version. This is probably why we're not see Resident Evil 5 on the Wii, 'cause a lesser version would just detract from the awesome REAL version. Of 'course, maybe they will port RE5 to the Wii, but maybe just like when they ported RE4 to the PS2, the original developers would not like it at all, but all the Wii fanboys would be happy that Capcom "sold out."

The Evolution of Niko Bellic

2008-06-14T03:41:00.001-05:00

Meet Lobstar (Spore)

2008-06-14T00:32:00.001-05:00

I got my hands on the Spore Creature Creator demo, and I'm running it through Boot Camp, and it works! Apparently, the Mac system requirements are too high for my Macbook, but it works just fine on Windows on the same Macbook. :D

Anyway, check out my first Spore creation: Lobstar!

Isn't he awesome? Yeah, I didn't get that creative with him, but it was my first time, and I think he's cool.

Here are some other shots of Lobstar, and my second guy, Alberto.

Confirmed: MGS4 best MGS game ever.

2008-06-13T23:03:00.001-05:00

Why? Because X is finally the "Confirm" button. Remember playing MGS2 and MGS3 and being confused because when you would press X, the game would go to the PREVIOUS menu? Well, they finally fixed it in MGS4, apparently. Awesome.

lol @ MGS4

2008-06-13T04:40:00.001-05:00

I'm watching IGN's and Gametrailers's video reviews of MGS4 (in HD), and they include lots of laughs...mainly 'cause they talk about things that I find ridiculous because of all the spoilers I've read.

Both video reviews are pretty similar, though Gametrailers's is more informative since it also points out some negatives with the game. Another thing I find weird is that both trailers use the "MGS Theme", which I hear is not even in the game thanks to that whole "plagiarism" thing. I guess the song is just so awesome, that it's association with Metal Gear will never die...Which sucks, 'cause, again, it's not in MGS4. Also, both video reviews end with a line something like, "We salute you, Solid Snake!" with a scene from MGS4 with Snake saluting. lolz. The IGN review even says something like, "an honorable end for Snake." ...lolololol.

And also, I thought the product placement ended with the iPod in the game, which I thought was excusable because it actually could be used in the game...But look at Otacon's monitor...

XD. That doesn't really bother me, but I know it'll bother other people...though I guess it'll bother me that the same people who get worked up about product placement in movies like Transformers will be fine with it in MGS4.

And c'mon, I'm sure Apple will have released better monitors than that in 2014! I'm surprised that the phones some of the characters use aren't iPhones (I think I read somewhere that they're actually Sony Ericsons[sp?]).

I want to WATCH MGS4

2008-06-08T02:43:00.001-05:00

No, I don't wanna play it, ('cause I can't...thanks to not having a PS3), but I wanna watch it. Yes, I've already read the spoilers. Yeah, I've already watched a cam video of the last boss fight. I still wanna watch it, but not some lame cam version. Not even some direct-feed YouTube video. I want someone to record it in HD. I want them to keep the gameplay in there, even, though I want them to know what they're doing, so I won't have to see a bunch of lame game over scenes.

Yeah, this is too much to ask...but c'mon...I'm not gonna get a PS3 anytime soon, and it's unlikely that MGS4 will go to the 360... So how else am I gonna watch this game?! I just wanna know how the story unfolds, and reading a few lines of spoiler text out of context isn't enough. Also, even though I read the spoilers...it still doesn't make sense, and I'm still confused! >< Damn you, Kojima!

Itagaki drama, escalated to new heights

2008-06-03T02:06:00.001-05:00

So, Itagaki is leaving Tecmo. He's also suing them. Damn. This is bigger drama than when he said "Tekken sucks" or how he said Ninja Gaiden Sigma was fail.

"I, Tomonobu Itagaki, hereby announce that on the 14th of May 2008 I filed a complaint in the Tokyo District Court against Tecmo Co., Ltd. for unpaid completion bonuses, and against the President of Tecmo, Yoshimi Yasuda, for such unlawful acts as unreasonable and disingenuous statements made towards me, claiming damages in total of 148 million yen. I also announce that this complaint was delivered to the defendants on May 22nd of the same year.

In addition, I hereby announce that I have today submitted a letter of resignation to Tecmo Co., Ltd. stating that I will resign as of the 1st of July, 2008.

Before the start of development on DEAD OR ALIVE 4, Tecmo Co., Ltd. had agreed to pay a completion bonus to me for this Xbox 360 title, which I produced. However, when the time came for the actual payment, Tecmo Co., Ltd. went against its previous agreement and refused payment. President Yoshimi Yasuda chose not only to violate this agreement, but also turned defiant, telling me “if you are dissatisfied with the decision not to pay the bonuses, either quit the company or sue it.” In addition, he made demeaning remarks about me to my subordinates and colleagues, causing me significant emotional distress and worsening my personal relationships and work environment. Thus, I have no choice but to resign from Tecmo Co., Ltd.

The conduct of Tecmo Co., Ltd. and its president Yoshimi Yasuda towards me has been unbefitting of a publicly-listed company.

I have filed this lawsuit with a strong intent to question the social responsibility of Tecmo Co., Ltd. and its President Yoshimi Yasuda, as well as condemning them for their unjust acts. Today, in addition to announcing the reasons for this lawsuit, I make clear my reasons for resigning.

To All Game Fans

I truly feel sorry to all the fans of the games I have made. NINJA GAIDEN 2, which will launch on the 3rd of June will be the last NINJA GAIDEN I will create. I will also never be able to make DEAD OR ALIVE 5. I regret the circumstances that have forced me to leave Tecmo, where I had worked for so many years, and I regret the disappointment this will cause my fans.

However, I can no longer continue to work with President Yoshimi Yasuda, a man who chooses not to honor promises even when he is able to do so.

I truly hope that nothing like this happens again in the future.

Tecmo Co., Ltd. Creative Officer

Leader, Team NINJA

Tomonobu Itagaki"

I never really liked Itagaki, and I've never been a fan of his games, though I recognize them as well-made. So I guess I wish him the best of luck. Tecmo, too.

I am so hungry...

2008-06-02T22:30:00.001-05:00

I need to eat lots of food to get my weight up, damn it! WiiFit tells me I gain 1 pound one day, then I lose that pound the next. GAHH!

Watching this video made me hungry for some jalapeno pizza...oh God...do want.

Guitar Hero: Metallica

2008-06-02T16:01:00.001-05:00

Seriously?

"In fiscal 2009, we plan to publish Guitar Hero: On Tour for the NDS; Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica, and Guitar Hero IV across multiple platforms."

I'm sure you see a problem here. I'll leave it at that...

Wii-only owners, please stop embarrassing yourselves: get another system

2008-05-29T13:25:00.001-05:00

I'm not telling you to get rid of your Wii. I'm telling you to get a PS3 or 360 to compliment your Wii. Stop being a whiney bitch and embarrassing yourself by clammering for crappy versions of 360/PS3 games.

Recently, Capcom announced Street Fighter IV for the 360, PS3, and PC. Honestly, who expected anything more than that? Wii-only owners, obviously, and boy, are they outraged. They really want that watered-down port of a game that their console cannot handle. I mean, I bet the Wiimote+Nuncuk doesn't even have enough buttons for it, but I bet they'd be find with waggling their remotes. But, really, why on earth would an HD, high-end game NOT go to a non-HD, low-end console?

The same thing happened with Resident Evil 5 when (surprise) it was announced only for 360 and PS3 (and probably PC somewhere down the line). Again, Wii owners wanted a crappy, watered-down port on their system. What the hell?

Oh, hey, guess what? They finally get a watered-down, crappy port on their system. It's called Rock Band. Wait, they complain about that and now they're not getting it, 'cause they're getting a watered-down, crappy port of Guitar Hero: World Tour.

Seriously, stop embarrassing yourselves, guys. Stop saying you want crappy versions of games. Go get another console for the better versions of these games.

You know, with all the shovelware the Wii gets, I'd expect the Wii owners to really want a game that's been given tender, loving care, built just for the Wii. I'd expect Nintendo fans to want SOUL in their games. But here they are, wanting Capcom to strip the soul out of their games, get them to throw away all their hard work on the higher-end consoles, and slap it on the Wii. The Wii fanboys say that there's a good reason they should do this: money. The Wii fanboys are constantly whining about, "THE WII MAKES THE MOST MONEY! WHY DON'T THEY MAKE GAMES FOR THE WII! IT'S LIKE FREE MONEY!" And then suddenly, someone like Ubisoft comes in, making crappy games like "Petz" and the Wii fanboys complain, "ALL THEY'RE DOING IS CASHIN-IN WITH THESE CRAPPY GAMES." Hey, that sounds familiar...didn't you want Capcom to do that with their games? So it's okay if Capcom does it and not Ubisoft?

Oh, no, wait. Ubisoft said they weren't releasing Prince of Persia or Beyond Good and Evil for the Wii, but they still want it. Bah, the cycle continues.

I don't hate the Wii. I love it. I love the stuff that the Wii gets, the stuff that's built with the Wii in mind. REAL Wii games, not ports from other consoles. If all theses Wii owners are spending 40 bucks on crappy ports of Okami, and 90 bucks on Wii Fit, why can't they save up some more money and buy a damn 360!? That would be a better investment, 'cause they're obviously interested in the 360's games... Plus, yeah, non-crappy online. Hah, yeah, you saw that coming. I have to work that into every Nintendo rant.

I've never called "Shotgun!" in my life

2008-05-27T17:01:00.001-05:00

But I recently had the brilliant idea of calling "HEAVY MACHINE GUN." So I'm calling that from now on...or maybe, "ROCKET LAWN-CHAIR."

Remember Spore? It's Still Amazing

2008-05-23T21:48:00.001-05:00

Imagine the possiblities! Obviously, people will make phallic imagery with legs, but there's more you can do than that! You could make Pokemon! A MUDKIP! I cannot wait for this game to come out. Luckily, the creature creator itself will be available this month. I really hope my Macbook can run it!

Elaboration: Western Game Developers Have Surpassed The Japanese

2008-05-23T12:31:00.001-05:00

There was a time when Japan was king of video games. Kinda weird how that time has passed, huh? Now the Xbox 360 is the dominating "hardcore" system (yeah, I'm not counting the Wii in this), even though it's a huge failure in Japan. And Japanese developers are flocking to the 360, as well. What's up with that?

Even then, their games are distinctly Japanese, with their random battles, turn-based combat, anime girly men, while the Westerners have their online play, drop-in/drop-out co-op, cover systems, GUN SHOOTING THAT DOESN'T SUCK. But they're changing things up now. It looks like the Japanese are trying to emulate the Westerners now. MGS4 has a (convoluted) online mode. The Silent Hill guys are actually outsourcing their Silent Hill games to Western developers. Capcom's making games like Lost Planet and Dead Rising, and Resident Evil 5 is now rumored to have a cover system and co-op modes.

Like I said in a previous post, Hideo Kojima himself admitted

"Unfortunately, overseas game production companies, which are well-funded and extremely skilled, have surpassed us by a couple of steps...It was once said that Japan molded the world's video game [industry], but that's becoming a thing of the past. Sad as it may be, it's the truth."

Dillon also told me this one story he read about in some magazine about how Kojima's development team thought a certain thing impossible, only to see that Assassin's Creed had pulled it off successfully. I guess that's why Altair is in MGS4.

We all know Itagaki is in love with Microsoft. He went as far as to dis the PS3 version of Ninja Gaiden. He also loves GTA IV and Rockstar (probably 'cause he himself thinks he is a rock star >_>).

Speaking of rock, check out Rock Band and Guitar Hero. We all know that Konami started it all with GuitarFreaks in Japan, right? Well, Guitar Hero/Rock Band is the big thing, and Konami is just now trying to capitalize on it with Rock Revolution, and it's clear that it's not up to snuff to the music games born in the West (no vocals, all songs are covers, blah blah blah).

The big thing, I believe, that separates the West and Japan in games is online functionality. Check out Xbox Live. That's how online should be done. PSN is not nearly as convenient as XBL, and don't get me started on how crappy the Wii's online is right now. Microsoft gets it, Sony is getting it (thanks to Microsoft), and Nintendo just doesn't care (which is why I'm pretty much leaving them out after this. Yeah I just wanted to dis on Nintendo's online again :P).

Konami really messed up with Metal Gear online. I haven't played it myself, but I've heard reliable stories of needing at least 3 online IDs and passwords just to play the game. It's crazy stuff, man. Oh yeah, don't get me started on those Friend Codes on Nintendo's side of things.

But yeah...the weaboos may deny it, but the West, in my eyes, are the kings of gaming now. Don't get me wrong, though. I still love Nintendo, Capcom, Konami. I'm just saying it's pretty weird how things have turned up. I'm pretty sure that the Japanese will catch up to the West pretty soon. Then it'll be closer again. Hell, I bet the Japanese will probably come back out on top again...if they want to advance beyond where they are now.

So, in summary, Nintendo, get off your ass, release a hard drive for the Wii, and make your online work.

I bought Wii Fit

2008-05-22T18:46:00.001-05:00

I'm not really sure why.

They're finally fixing Facebook

2008-05-19T12:43:00.001-05:00

Check it.

And no, I don't mean "fixing" as in giving into the whiney demands of taking away features and making it only for college students again. I'm talking about making it less messy. All the Applications and crap will still be there, but just on a separate page from your main profile. I'm going to enjoy this very much.