Rising San - The SoloNerfherder Experience

Me Pipes Are All Blogged Up!

2008-03-04T23:28:00.000-08:00

When was the last time I blogged? It's been a good few months, hasn't it? I guess I was kinda blogged out. I felt that to have a decent blog you have to keep churning out material 2 or 3 times a week at least. That takes a lot of time if you write like me, looking for photos and other stuff to make every blog entry just so. Other things in my life were taking up my time, and I wasn't even getting any time to just play video games. So I took some time off. But now I'm back, though I'll post at a more relaxed pace. That should keep you guys on your toes!

A few things have happened since I last blogged; you know, little things such as the birth of my fantastically cute son!

He's a noisy bast, but he brings my wife and I so much joy. When he greets me with a big smile, it melts my butch, macho man heart. Awwww. But more on my baby son some other time.

In October, I was whinging on about Waitlo 3.

I've only just now gotten to play through the campaign on Normal. Initially, I got the Asian version (because I have a JP Xbox 360) a couple of days after launch day from Play Asia, thinking it would be in English like Halo 2 was. Well, you would, wouldn't you? It turns out Microsoft decided to turn things on their head, initially only releasing a Chinese language Asian version. After a month of waiting, umming and ahhing by Play Asia, they finally gave me most of my money back on credit (they took $5 for shipping - which is supposed to be free!) which I used to get an American version. M$ didn't region lock the US version for once - who knew??!! I guess when you import you're going to get burned sometimes.

So I got my US version in late October/early November. I'm not a Bungie über-fan, but I like the Halo series a lot. I've read the first 3 books, played Halo CE on Legendary co-op a few times through with friends. I enjoyed Halo 2, although I was disappointed by some of the stages and that ending. But the Halo universe still excites me, so I eagerly put my Halo 3 disc into my 360. The initial cinematic of a fire in the sky over a jungle... and freeze. My 360 crashed! I rebooted my 360 and... RRoD! Arrrrgggghh! So Halo 3 killed my 360. I thought my trusty launch day 360 had avoided all the Red Ring of Death bollocks, but I guess RRoDs are just like death: they catch up to us all eventually. And just when Microsoft had built up some cachet with me (I'm a Mac user specifically because my friends and brother continually seem to have problems with their Windows PCs), too.

Anyway, luckily, Microsoft saw it my way and got my machine repaired. It came back in a week and half, which, fair dos, is pretty fast. Powered it up, everything looked fine, except... my controllers wouldn't sync with the damn machine! After a reboot, I tried again, still nothing, then after a few seconds - RRoD! GODDDDAAMMMIIIT! Even after a repair the machine wouldn't work - and I hadn't even put Halo 3 in yet. So back to M$ my 360 went. In the meantime, I was getting pretty pissed with not being able to play Halo 3. I'd anticipated it since that cliffhanger ending 3 years before just as much as everyone else, so why was this happening to me? Desperate to make sure I could play my frickin' game, I sent my game disc (which was a little scratched) to America for a replacement on the advice of Microsoft's Japanese and American support lines, just in case the disc was the problem. Because of the whole different territories thang, I figured it was a long shot, but god-smegging-damnit, they owed me a free replacement after all this.

My 360 came back around Christmas Day, and I gingerly switched it on, fearing the worst again. Da-daaaa! It worked! It fucking worked! But it didn't get much play time because I was busy playing with my good as new 2nd hand PS3 that I'd just bought Uncharted on Crushing for the win, by the way!). After I beat Uncharted, I started on Onechanbara vorteX, which had been on my Pile O' Shame for months. But, last Thursday, after 2 - 3 months of waiting, my replacement Halo 3 disc arrived! WA-HOO-HOO-00T! It had been so long that I thought M$ had decided to fuck me over again and just kept the disc. So thanks for the free replacement, Microsoft. Though if your machines and discs had worked in the first place, I wouldn't have needed to send off for a replacement... *grumble, grumble, whinge, mutter...*

So after all that, how the fuck is it, Uncle Nerfherder?

It's really good! Playing it was like putting on your old favourite sweatshirt. Comfortable, great to wear, but not a lot's changed. But it was really fun. I played it on Normal, fearing Legendary on single player. Yeah, I pussied out, so what? *stares you out* Halo CE on Normal when I first got it was a pretty stiff challenge for me, so I thought it would be cool this time, too. But I rattled through the game in only a few hours. I think I only played it 3 times for 2-3 hours each and I beat it on Normal. I didn't exactly feel that it was short, more that I just blew through everything really quickly. Guess I should've gone with Legendary. So I guess it's easy, rather than short. But the fact that I dropped Onechanabara so easily for this and just kept on playing should tell you that playing Halo 3, even for a short breeze through on Normal, is pretty damn fun. Just the drum rumble as the Bungie logo appears makes you feel, "This game is quality."

I couldn't wait to see what happened next, so the addictive gameplay is there. It's better than Halo 2 to play. There're more sandbox bits, more vehicles to play with (yay Hornets!), huge battles and a general sense that there's more going on in the world than just your fight. But the story suffers. Halo 2 hinted that there was a lot more to Gravemind, Truth, and the Forerunner-Human connection. But it's all very simply laid out for you. Too simply. Truth barely makes an appearance and Gravemind doesn't appear at all. Sorry, a disembodied voice babbling deep-sounding but ultimately meaningless poetry/threats and a couple of tentacles don't count. And what the hell is the point of using 4 levels just to get near to Truth's ship? There could have been a lot more story told there, fun as those levels around Mombasa are.

Truth Lands on Earth... Attack of the FRENCH!!!

After all the depth that had been established with the books, the mystery of the Forerunners and the Covenant in Halo CE, Truth's Machiavellian plotting and revelation that humans are connected to the Forerunners in Halo 2, Halo 3's story felt like a Star Trek two-parter style cop out. The penultimate Cortana rescue level felt like a step down to sub-Doom 3 at times, too. But hey, it's done, the bad guys are dead and we'll probably never know what might have been. It's still a fun game, but I get the feeling that Halo's campaign design has perhaps, since the 2nd game, been waylaid at least in part by an emphasis on multiplayer, which is not something I'm big on.

Random things I like about Halo 3 (SPOILARZ MODE ACTIVATE!):

The sound and art direction. Great music, fantastic surround sound and I love the voice acting. The first marine comment I got was Jonathan Ross in his inimitable tone saying, "Haven't you got something better to do than look at me?" Being a Wossie fan, that gave me a good chuckle. I couldn't recognise any of the other celebrity voices, though. Sorry, Adam Baldwin (^_^)

Wossie in the game:

The vehicles. So many vehicles to use, plenty of battles to use them in, maybe more than the previous two games. The Brute Chopper is awesome. And that's the only time you'll see me say I like choppers in public!

Dah-nah-nah-nah-nah, bad to the bone, da-nah-nah-nah-nah, buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-baaaad...

The weps. Sooooo many weapons in this and most of them are fun to use. And aw yeeeeah, the return of the Assault Rifle of Awesomeness. Thank you Bungie for putting it back in. I never really liked the battle rifle.

Plenty of Sgt. Johnson wisecracking and generally being prominent in the game. Maybe even more than the Arbiter! I liked the Arbiter, but after his role last time, all he does is just shoot bad guys and kill Truth. He deserved better this time around. I think Arbiter's story in the last game and this would have made a nice side campaign that you could say, unlock after you beat the main campaign.

Watching brutes get turned into Flood in real time. Was that in the previous games? I don't remember it, and it surprised the hell out of me when I first saw it here.

And a whole lot more that I've forgotten...

Random stuff I didn't like (still in SPOILARZ MODE!):

Johnson dies! How could you kill that wiseass son of a bitch? He was one of my favourite characters! So much for the Sgt. Johnson spin-off game...

And to a lesser extent, Miranda dies! The Keyes family are one bunch of unlucky people *sniff*

No dual wielding for needlers. They nerfed it too much!

Brute Chieftains with gravity hammers - they're tough bastards, especially when they have an entourage! I died a lot taking out the shield barriers in the "Trident" stage.

How come Truth changes from conniving codger in Halo 2 to religious zealot delusional in this game?

Once you clock how to fight the scarabs, awesome as they are, they're too easy to take down.

If you're now the world's only person to not have played Halo 3, check it out. It's totally worth it. Just play it on Heroic or Legendary. I'm looking forward to replaying it on Legendary, hopefully with online co-op!

Japlish Time!

2007-10-31T06:59:00.000-07:00

So it's been quite a while, but here's a little response to Shaolin Steele's stupid signs/product names in Germany. They're not particularly rude, but I find them amusing:

Here's a classic; a well known brand of men's toiletries here in Japan.

This isn't Japanese, but I saw it in a Japanese pet store and it's funny, so it must be included!

Here's something on an apron I saw in a shop window. I'm not sure if this is supposed to get you excited for apples or for some "juicy time" with the wearer...

And to finish up, here's some general lunacy and mauling of the English language in an optician's:

Next time, I'll up some mad Super Mario pics as well as some other mad crap I came across recently. Happy Halloween!

Till next time, fellow Nerf Herders!

Hanky Lanky Wanky Spanky Skanky Manky Panky!!!!

2007-10-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hey there, Nerfherders, what's up?

I'm still waiting for my copy of Halo 3 to arrive, but that's a story I'll get into properly soon.

And now Orange Box is out - winter releases are packed too close together. Tis often said, but only because it's true!

Anyway, in response to Shaolinsteele's stupid sign shenanigans recently, here is one of my fave recent stupid pics and the TV advert that goes with it:

inoue mao-meiji Panky
Uploaded by acdticojp

Waiting for Halot (Geddit? Godot, "Halot"?)

2007-10-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

Oh, please yourselves, to quote Frankie Howerd. (^_^)

Yeah, I haven't blogged in ages, because of the usual stuff, yadda, yadda.

Well, Halo 3, a.k.a. known as the Second Coming has happened. Millions have seen the ending. Billions of hours have probably been spent by people splatting Spartan or Covenant with the Gravity Hammer in multiplayer. Hell, even Japan got a virtually simultaneous release! And yet... there's something wrong with this picture... oh yeah, I'm still waiting for me copy of Halo 3 to arrive! I doubt it's the fault of Play-Asia, as they sent my order out on the day of release. Maybe something got futzed while my game was in the post. Could be, what with the privatisation of the Japanese Postal service happening this week! Who knows? I just want to join in on the Halo fun with everybody else. Guess I'll just have to make do with Devil May Cry 2 from my Pile O' Shame till it arrives...

If you're reading this Alexandra, hopefully I'll see you on Waitlo 3 soon! (^o^)

rEal lifE wipEout!

2007-08-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

I can't be the first person who's wanted to race around in a craft like those from the awesome wipEout series. I wonder, though, can this video be for real?

It seems as though a company is looking to sell something that's getting closer to making that dream a reality. Although it's far from wipEout or even what the developer of this flying car is eventually aiming for, I think even at the much slower speeds this car flies at, it sure would be awesome to zoom around in.

Also, who cribbed from who? The guys at Koei Canada who made Fatal Inertia:

or the boffins behind the flying car mentioned above:

The public demands to know!

Clean Up On Aisle 360!

2007-08-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty engrossed in other stuff like the recent Transformers movie hype and even more so in all things Harry Potter, so I'd collected quite a few unplayed demos from Xbox Live. 20GB being the gaming equivalent of having a shot glass to drink a pint of Ye Olde English Best, I decided last weekend it was time to play some of these damn demos and get them off my 360's hard drive!

First up on the chopping block was Project Sylpheed. It's been out in the shops here forever, but only recently released in the States. So now Japan gets the demo, too. Huh. Well that makes sense... And people wonder why 360 does so great in Japan (^_^).

I never bothered with Sylpheed when it came out here last winter because it looked like just another anime style cheap cash-in like all those simple 1 on 1 fighters or mecha games that BandaiNamco have been churning out the factory since the Dawn of Tiiiiiime. It's actually a fairly decent, sped up version of Colony Wars with an attractive coat of anime paint. The controls are complicated, but practice makes you less of a Monkian. I probably would buy it were not for Sylpheed handing me my ass back all the time. It takes a lot of practice and retries to figure out what weapon does what, and you can't carry all of them at once, so restarting the mission is required till you can try them all out. It's also hard to tell who the smeg is who in the melee. It's great that Squenix have created these massive space battles, but more needs to be done to make it easier to distinguish targets from friendlies. Maybe I'll pick it up if it's half price. Come to think of it, it probably already is considering how popular 360 is here in Japan!

Do you want to delete this content?

Yes <----

No.

Oh hell yeah!

Next up... Stranglehold, a.k.a. Hard Criscoed a.k.a Charlie Chan and the Creosote Factory. Screw Gears of War (actually, screw GoW anyway, it's not bad, but it is vastly overrated), this sets a new level for just sheer background detail. In this Hong Kong backstreets demo level, there is a megafuckton of shootable objects, market stalls, neon kanji shop signs and scaffolding. The hero, modelled on Chow Yun Fat, is a detailed 3D character but with textures that appear to have been roughly sewn on, similar to (but not quite as obvious as) a patchwork quilt. Probably it's just an odd side effect of the pits and grooves they put on him to make him look worn and dirty. And what's with the graphics engine making him appear to be covered in creosote?!

I thought this was going to be a stupid Max Payne clone, but it's actually pretty cool. I initially laughed at how Tequila bum slid over every fricking' object at waist height - I'd get confused by the sudden acceleration of ass sliding over tables when I didn't intend to, try to change direction and end up repeatedly sliding the opposite way and back again! Could have used that as "looped" footage for a music video with scratching in it!(^_^)

The ludicrously over the top gunplay was satisfying once the controls are gotten used to. Tequila Time was especially fun, as it recharges quicker than the shoot dodge meter in Max Payne. I soon had the hang of shooting and diving, and it made me feel like God in this game. It'd be great if they made a DLC level (or maybe it's already in the full game as an Easter egg?) of the final hospital duel from the original movie Hard Boiled, but at full speed (you go into slo-mo when you use Tequila Time).

That. Would. Blow. My. Mind.

With white doves flying in the foreground...(^_^)

A definite buy, but I'd rather wait for the limited edition PS3 version which I heard has Hard Boiled included. Unfortunately, that means missing out on Achievements! I also need to be able to actually afford a PS3 first! Babies are expensive...

Delete.

Hmm... Viva Pinata demo... well, I just bought the groovily-packaged Limited Edition Asian version on the cheap from Play Asia last month (haven't played it yet, but it was half price, so I had to get it whilst it was on sale!), so not much need for this demo. But I had a quick look to see what it was like in Japanese (I have a habit of hoarding dual versions of games sometimes so I can compare localisations!). Oh. It autodetected my 360 menu settings and set the demo to English... hmm, nice graphics! And a regional British accent... Don't see that everyday in video games... Delete.

4 more to go... let's try... Stuntman Ignition. When I hear the word "stunt", I often am reminded of something that scarred me for life when I was a child - the bearded cross dressing shenanigans of comedian Kenny Everett as his character Cupid Stunt.

Love that name(^_^). Anyway, Stuntman. I remembered the previous games got mediocre scores, so I ignored them, though the idea of trying to drive the prefect stunt sequence through a movie set sounded like a great idea. This was a fairly good demo, with 2 or 3 stages, one seemingly ~~ripped off from~~ based on the execrable movie Volcano. Or Dante's Peak, take your pick. The car drives like one from Ridge Racer in grip mode, so no 360 spins without trying really hard! It's easy to miss a spot or a skid you have to drive through, so I soon earned "fuck up points", too many of which force a restart. There are also some instant "death" restart points, too, such as landing the car in the lava floes. Whoops! (^_^;
Overall, not bad, but not fun enough to make me want to buy it when there's Halo 3, Bioshock and Metroid Prime 3 around! You're outta there! Delete!

So, Blazing Angels 2. Didn't play the first, and I don't think I missed very much by not doing so. The demo was pretty fun, but like Sylpheed, finding targets in the murky countryside, amongst the trees or against the dark blue ocean was sometimes frustrating, especially in the final escort mission of the demo, where you essentially have a time limit (i.e. kill everyone before the flotilla you're escorting gets mullahed). Fun singleplayer for a "free" demo, but multiplayer was boring as hell. Few players over a wide open deathmatch area = falling asleep at the stick! Delete! Now!

And then there were 2... next was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Liked the movie a lot (even went to see it twice!), despite the disappointingly numerous cuts made from the book (GRRR...).
Wow, 1.3GB demo. Must be a pretty long demo, right? Wroooooong. EA, if you're going to make such a humangously(sic) huge demo, please, please, please for the love of (insert religious preference here!) don't put a 5 bloody minute time limit on it. That's just plain asinine. I literally only had enough time to float a couple of school benches around with Wingardium Leviosa, play a quick game of gobstones (but not really get what what I was doing) and walk into the Great Hall before the demo timed out. That's barely enough time to get the controls down, let alone get hooked on the game. I doubt there are many people who haven't already decided if they're going to buy this or not before playing the demo, but 5 minutes for such a large download is ridiculous. I know I'd like to go into the shop having played enough to know I'm buying a game I like, even though I probably would buy this anyway, Harry Potter whore that I am. As it is, despite the good reviews, I think I'll wait to get it 2nd hand or at less than half price to lower the risk. In the meantime, I'd love to replay the demo but for that fucking crass time limit... DELETE!

Last one! Phew! And it is... Beautiful Katamari. I wonder if the Japanese title is pronounced the same or has it been changed to the more common in Japanese "beautifo-".
I love the Katamari series' style. Crazy music and characters, quirky, Kubrick-esque graphics... but what's so great about the gameplay? It's kinda fun rolling sundry crap into a huge ball for 3 minutes... but over the course of an entire game? It'll take more than this demo to convince me. Sorry King of All Cosmos, you're a funny, spandex outfit wearing dude, but... delete.

Sweet. 13.6GB free. Nice!

Thanks for reading this far. I know it was a long journey!(^_^)

ZOMG! ATLUS breaks 3 guys' arms shocker!!!

2007-08-22T02:29:00.000-07:00

Don't go breaking my arm...
I won't go breaking your arm...

So a French guy, a Korean guy and a Japanese guy walk up to an Arm Spirit arm wrestling machine from Atlus to prove their Muscle Bob Buffpantsness and promptly get their arms broken! No joke! According to a local TV report and this article I found afterwards, Atlus have had to recall their Arm Spirit machines since the accidents happened in three different locations, including my town, Fukuoka. Kinda trumps getting Wii Tennis elbow as a Hardcore Gaming Accident, huh?

Natsukashii - Gaming Nostalgia: Bust-A-Move

2007-08-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

I suck at rhythm action games. But I love 'em to bits! So, like the half-Chinese-half-no-rhythm-honky that I am, I go into a rhythm action game like a lamb to the slaughter!
I think my penchant for music games started at uni, around 1997. My friend Shaolinsteele had picked up Parappa the Rapper and, despite its short length, its quirkiness and happy go lucky atmosphere charmed everyone watching, especially me. Soon after, through our Japanese contacts (namely a dorm full of Japanese girls come to learn English and this Earth thing called "kissing" - the Man from Del Monte, he say "YEEEEAAAAH!"), Shaolinsteele and I got our grubby English meathooks on Beatmania and a little gaming gold nugget called Bust A Move (you may know it as Bust A Groove because the Puzzle Bobble series had already inexplicably nicked the Bust A Move name for itself in the West, even though you don't bust moves in Puzzle Bobble. Hmmm...).

Bust A Move (BAM) had a gameplay system that I still don't fully get to this day. That's how much of an unco I am at the rhythm action genre! But I still had fun trying to outdance my rivals on each stage by tapping out the onscreen directions to the correct beat. The beat was flashed in the background of the box that displayed the directions or buttons you had to press.

Get the rhythm right, and you'd school your opponent with your own character's dance moves. Flub it and you'd get served!

The main reasons I have fond memories of this game are the game's sound, the character designs and the fun evenings I had with my friends while playing BAM. The concept of dance-offs, if not the actual execution, was easy to grasp and the characters were varied, running the gamut of cool, cute, anime sexy, funny, kitsch and downright "Huh? WTF?" bizarro.

As for the sound of the game, it was just as varied as the characters, as each song was made to fit the character and stage it went with. Every song was catchy and written to express the personality of each character. I have to admit liking a lot of the genres of music included in BAM, which obviously helped win me over. The attractive graphics, the music, the characters, the whole concept fitting together like bacon and eggs is why I still think about BAM now. I even listen to the soundtrack sometimes, even though it's dated as hell!

So, anyone else have any memories of this game, good or bad? What about it did you love or think sucked? I gots to know!

I'll leave you with some clips from the game, starting with one of my favourite characters, Hiro, because I'm a sucker for 70's disco (^_^):

Best of the Week's gamevideos.com

2007-08-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

Hey there fellow Nerfherders, how you coping with the summer heat? Is it as bad as it is here in sweaty ol' Japan? Every day I'm torn between wanting to go out because it's so bright, and staying home because I know I'll be drenched in sweat within 15 minutes because of the humidity! (>_<) Mrs. SoloNerfherder, I assume because she has my Danish in her oven (^_-), is feeling the heat even more. We've got the fans and air conditioner on at full blast and she still says it's hotter than a sauna on the Sun! Managed to finally finish Prey on the 360. It's not very long or difficult, but there were other things taking up my time, as usual (^_^; Luckily, an all nighter on Friday night got me to the end. I'll write something about it soon.

Here's some interesting clips I found trawling gamevideos.com this weekend:

It's always nice when one of your video game series is reduced to so many cardboard-looking sets tuck together:

I can't tell if this is for real and is just crap, or if this is a parody.

My bet is it's for real. Oh dear, big LOLs, etc.

Here's another hilarious vid. Double entendre-tastic!

I'll leave you guys with this one. This amazed me, someone has gotten a NES emulator working on an iPhone already! Looks like it needs some tweaking before it'll play well, though.

Cobra Clutch!

2007-08-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

Any G.I. Joe fans here? I watched G.I. Joe The Movie, or Action Force as I knew it when I was a kid, a few days ago. I was a bit of a fan as a kid, Transformer mania having died down a little in the UK in the wake of Transformers The Movie bombing and the 3rd season of the TV show losing its way a bit. Nobody liked Rodimus Prime over ol' Oppy, I guess!

I decided to look up the G.I. Joe movie because the hilarious G.I. Joe public service announcement parodies from a couple of years back rekindled my interest in the original series. There were a few connections between the production of Transformers the Movie (which I love and watched again recently), and G.I. Joe the Movie according to the interviews on the TF Movie DVD that I got for my birthday. Having never watched the movie before, I started it up in anticipation. Would the memories of collecting the action figures (Anyone who calls them "dolls" gets a chop from my kung-fu grip hand!), reading the ludicrously complicated Marvel comic or the thrills of watching the A-Team-esque no character deaths cartoon come flooding back?

Firing the movie up, I was welcomed by this bizarre sight - G.I. Joe the musical anyone?

And here's the the equally cheesetabulous UK version - I was surprised how different it is:

So, OK, good for a laugh, but it was a good indicator of the quality of the rest of the movie, i.e. dire. It was sort of fun seeing characters that I used to know when I was a kid, and now I know who the hell Sergeant Slaughter is from having watched WWE over the last few years (it wasn't that big a deal in the UK when I was a kid), it was fun seeing him in his prime, too.

Compared to Transformers the Movie, G.I.Joe the Movie felt like no one really cared about its production; the animation and art aren't nearly as detailed as TF the Movie, the music is just carried over from the original TV show, not to mention the musical cues ripped off from the TF TV series, and sound effects from Star Wars!(^_^)

The story veers away from the military cartoony fiction of the old series and comics. I remember how the comics would have footnotes in the panels telling the reader the names of the weapons the characters had and what they could do, for instance. The movie goes into weird science fiction/fantasy territory. In a major retcon for the series, it turns out the bad guys, Cobra, a terrorist army who've been trying to take over the world from episode one, are in fact borne from a secret race of weird looking creatures that had all but died out and still remained hidden somewhere in the Himalayas, as you do. Kinda strange how they had this guy:

voice this guy:

They also had Don Johnson play a crass, womanising officer called Lieutenant Falcon, but he's crap (^_^). One cool video game connection is Michael Bell, who played mainstay hero Duke in G.I. Joe. Video game fans will know his characters Raziel from the Legacy of Kain series, as well as The Fear from Metal Gear Solid 3.

Always-screaming Cobra Commander is often good for a laugh because he's so cowardly. But in the movie, he gets turned into a friggin' snake! OK... (^_^;
Seeing this scene made me realise I actually had seen this movie once as a boy. For some reason seeing Cobra Commander getting turned into a snake scared the brown sauce out of me and I couldn't bear to watch it again! I guess playing Biohazard and Dead Rising has toughened me up since then (^_^;

G.I. Joe the Movie was a nice trip down Memory Boulevard, but ultimately, it's a pretty bad movie. They even brought Duke back from death in the movie with some hastily redubbed dialogue (something about that he'd come out of a coma) so that the producers didn't have to face the backlash they did when they killed off Optimus Prime in the TF movie! Crazy (>_<)!

I've never played any of the G.I. Joe video games that were made, mainly for the NES, but I would like to check out this one from the arcades which seems to play like the into-the-screen stages on Contra and S.P.Y.: Special Project Y:

Looks pretty cool, huh? Well, it's almost 4:30 in the a.m., so that's enough random G.I. Joe-ness for now! Anyone else got some 80s cartoon skeletons in their closets? (^_^)

2007-08-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

This blog looks familiar... hmm... (^_^).

Glad you're back blogging, even though I've read most of it already in your e-mails to me. Love the work you did on the Carmen Sandiego pic, by the way. I see you even managed to alter the shadow to match her/your new head!

That Mario vid was pretty funny. I want to see an XMugen mod that plays and looks like that!

Oh yeah, and I just noticed this next to your blog:

'Bout time you changed this, huh?(^_^)

Fatal Mortality!

2007-08-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Just found these vids over at gamevideos! They're pretty funny, especially the 3rd one!

And if you're in London and would like to see some art, go see my friend's exhibition! It starts tomorrow and goes on to the weekend. Details here. It would be great if you could go support her. Tell your friends now!(^_^)

Everybody Owns Lara Croft's Ass (^_^)

2007-08-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't some hentai tie-up between Everybody's Golf (i.e. Hot Shots Golf) and Tomb Raider. Now that would be weird. About as weird as what I just found:

Aaaanyway, I pwned Lara Croft's big comeback game, Tomb Raider Legend last week. Thanks to therealpidge05, who got it for my birthday a little early! Me love you long time, baby!

I've always had a couple of reasons for being interested in the TR games, and I played a little of the 1st one and the 4th one way back, but this is the first one I've bothered to to play till the end. It came out spring last year, so I'm definitely LTTP, but who cares? I really enjoyed it. It's not very long, which made a refreshing change from Blue Dragon and Final Fantasy V Advance that I'd played just before.

It's also pretty easy, but enjoyably so. Very little hair-tearing, and I was able to play through the game a few times to get all the achievements. 360 Achievement Whores, this game is for you (^_-). So yeah, the achievements are kinda hollow, as probably everyone has spanked Lara's ~~arse~~ game by now (^_^).

The graphics aren't Gears of War quality, but I like them, there's good use of light and shadow, and the music sounds good enough to draw me into the action. In fact the whole game from the intro when you first load up strives successfully to create a Bond With Breasts action movie atmosphere. There's even a few nods to the movies, too, such as the layout of Lara's mansion resembling the one from the 1st movie (haven't seen the 2nd one) and a few of the movie's outfits appearing in the long list of unlockable costumes.

The highest recommendation I can give Tomb Raider Legend is simply that I didn't want to put the controller down, and now I'm really looking forward to a hopefully decent version of Tomb Raider Anniversary coming to 360, in whatever form it takes. Seeing as you can probably pick this game up for half price or less now, go check it out!

Since I finished TR Legend, I've started playing Prey, another denizen of the 360 bargain bucket from last year. So far, I don't like it nearly as much ol' Lara's game. But you never know, maybe it'll get better.

Oh yeah, I finally broke the 50K point barrier on 1UP! Yay me! So now my rank is... "Shadow Mage"? WTF? I was hoping I'd rank up from Genome Soldier to Revolver Ocelot! Or at least that guy peeing off the side of a building in MGS 2...

Destroy All Humans!

2007-07-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to talk about that game.

I just checked out a new video game show called Destroy The Humanoid. It seems to cover just retro stuff, with a British angle. So that means less NES, and more Spectrum. But you should check it out, it's got a good sense of humour, though the Space Invaders gag got old after the nth time it was repeated.

While I'm here, here's one of my latest photos with Japlish. It's not rude or anything, but it makes me smile (^_^).

It's a bit blurry, but if you look carefully, you might just see that the Ku Klux Klan have started exporting coffee pots to Japan...

Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly

2007-07-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'll be back soon with a few decent things to post, such as a translation of a Famitsu staffer's opinions on GTA.

It's gonna be a lot harder to update my blog from now on because I won't be able to do it during free time at work anymore. Bloody work servers and their evil new ~~goofing off~~ internet filters! A curse on thee, I-Filter! Especially as I can't even check my Gmail thanks to this new ~~filter~~ evil spawn of the Interwebs Devil himself!. Seriously lamerific.

Well back soon. Anyone catch E3? What did y'all think of it?

"It's over, Prime."

2007-07-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, there everyone.

As you may have noticed from my 1UP page, I like Transformers. Have done since I was in primary school in the 80s. I was the sad Transformers guru/otaku who knew all the profiles of all the Transformers and everyone else consulted to know what their Transformers could do when we played at school. A sort of Transformers DM, if you will. So otaku, but hey, I was a kid, ya know? Do you remember tech specs, those little pieces on each character's personality on the back of every box? Here's a reminder (^_^):

I've since forgotten all that ~~incredibly useful~~ knowledge now and I'm not such a hardcore fan and collector as I was back in the day. But I'm still one of those guys who gets excited when I hear the line, "Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost." You've got The Touch. You've got The Powwweerrrr... YEAH! (^_^)

Actually, therealpidge05 just sent me a copy of the new edition of Transformers The Movie (as opposed to the new movie which is just called Transformers) on DVD for my upcoming birthday (Thank you very much, by the way!), complete with awesome lenticular cover. Shame it's separate from the case and therefore falls on the floor all the time, but it's still great.

Here's what the cover looks like... which transforms (narf!) into this one...

I think the movie has been hitting cinemas in the US recently, but Japan has to wait till mid August to get their giant robo on. I'm not too optimistic about the movie because I've been disappointed a zillion times before by hyped up movies. And this take on the TF universe doesn't look very faithful to the original - how could it be, considering the original movie bombed big time at the box office? And with a mega$bucks budget comes mega$bucks risk, so the producers have to ~~fuck up my childhood memories~~ adapt the concept for a wider audience. I get that. But that's what makes me not so optimistic about the upcoming movie. I hope it'll be good. But Megatron. *sigh* Meggy, Meggy, Meggy. You will always be a Walther P-38 to me...

Speaking of ol' Megs, I read on White Fang's blog that there's a remade version of Megatron (Masterpiece Megatron)! I have a Masterpiece Optimus from a couple of years back, and wondered at the time why there was no equivalent version of Megs. About bloody time! Shame the US version has to have a smeggy orange barrel tip added because of US gun laws, but that's what you get when people rob 7-11s with a Megatron in gun mode. How anyone could fall for that is beyond me, but there you go...

Masterpiece Megatron. He pwns Starscream's whiny arse, and you know it!

Would love to hear some comments on the new movie from anyone, positive or otherwise. But no spoilers please! Any spoilers and I'll go Hulk Smash! on your ass (^_^).

Royd Rage and More WTF!!?? DS Software

2007-07-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

While shopping in a local game shop here in sweat-just-dropped-from-my-balls-it's-so-humid Japan last weekend, I found this:

Gotta love that Japlish. I know I do. Hours of fun entertainment looking for stuff like that (^o^)

In the same shop I also saw a display for an upcoming series of DS software. Maybe you've heard of the Oryori Navi series on DS here, which is basically a series of cookbooks on your DS. In the same style, I give you:

Bartender DS!

Not just one, not two, but three different "games" for your DS. Bartender DS is for cocktails, you've got Sommelier DS for wines, and Sakashou DS for shouchu, a kind of sake.

Don't believe me? Well lookee here...

I certainly won't be buying them, but I'm sure you've got your preorder in for the shochu one already, right Shaolinsteele? (^_^)

The Cocktease

2007-07-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I've left it a bit long to tell you guys whether my baby is going to be a little Mario or Peach.

Let's just say... he's gonna be wearing the red cap and blue dungarees(^_^) Yep, it's gonna be a boy! WEEEHAHH! Not that I minded either way, of course. I'll take him to do all sorts of manly things like camping, hunting, fishing... on the TV with a Wiimote in hand (^_^;

Haven't had a lot of time recently to blog because I've been tired from work and I've had to spend a lot of time rearranging my cable jungle here at Nerfbuster Video (that's what therealpidge likes to call my apartment 'cos there's so much gamer and DVD awesomeness here!) to accomodate the baby's stuff that my wife's sister just sent us. We got 4 boxes of all kinds of like new 2nd hand baby stuff. Which'll save us a Jeffing fuckton of money. Also finally went wireless and got an Airport card and Extreme Base Station in the last week. It's great to have my Wii and PSP finally online over Wi-Fi! There's a ton of videos and other downloadables from the official PSP sites, which is great. I didn' t expect that from Sony at all. Messing about swapping Miis with therealpidge, Everybody Votes (Or Minna de Touhyou as it's known here) and all that other online Wii fun-osity has been great, too. I'll pop up my Wii Number later so anyone willing can swap Miis with me. The weirder the better! (^o^)

Have to say though, I've been having a lot of problems getting my DS online. DS having only WEP security sucks my big sweaty balls big time. I don't want to leave my network on WEP all the time as WEP ain't worth a damn, according to the Feds. I've tried some workarounds on my Mac, but couldn't get them to work. Temporarily switching down to WEP or trying to use one of these workarounds (if they actually worked on my DS) only ends up fudging up the rest of my network that's set to WPA. So, boo, Nintendo, boo. And while we're spreading hate around, a big raspberry goes to Buffalo and your frigging Linktheater that only uses WEP, too! :p PLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPP!!!!

Yippee Ki-Ay Muthagunshot!

2007-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

John McClane just jumped ~~the shark~~ the F-35.

Just came back from seeing Die Hard 4.0, or Live Free or Die Hard as it's called in the US. It was pretty good, especially the first 2/3 of the movie.

*YARRR!! There be SPOILERS AHEAD!*

Kinda peters out at the end, though, with a simple hostage anti-climax which has the one time in the movie John McClane/Bruce Willis says his, "Yippee Ki-Ay, Motherfucker!" catchphrase, only it's muffled by a gunshot when he gets to the fucker part. Kinda lame, but whatever, it didn't spoil the movie. The F-35 jet scene was ridiculous, though. You expect to suspend disbelief and let certain things slide in action movies - you know, like how computer hacking high security systems takes only a few seconds, people ignoring near lethal/lethal injuries to get up and kick more ass, etc. - but that F-35 fighter jet vs a semi truck was stupid. I couldn't stop wryly smiling at the ridicularseity of it all! (^_^)

Here's a clip. It looks cooler here than it did at the cinema! (^_^;

And now for something fairly different...

Not much has been going on this week, until today, where I went with my wife to the maternity clinic and found out what sex our baby is going to be. I was surprised by how Big Jeff Mahoolah our baby was on the ultrasound! But that's not surprising, seeing as my wife's ballooned in the last week or two! (^_^;

Also beat Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance twice this week, once with the main hero Juste, and again with the "secret" Maxim character. Compared to the other 'vanias I've played (which is only a few - the original, some Dracula X and Dawn of Sorrow), in fact, by any gaming standard, this game is a cakewalk. I had a good time playing it, but I doubt it's high on the list of best Castlevanias ever. And the music sucks.

Maxim's mode has to have been an afterthought (it's only playable after you finish the game once with the hero, Juste) - his sprite look soooo much worse than Juste's it 's not funny. The speed boost Maxim gets over Juste is appreciated, but his mode is rather simple in comparison.

Also checked out the Boss Rush Mode using Juste, Maxim and... Simon Belmont from the original Castlevania! No wonder I was shite at the first Castlevania when I was a kid - Simon controls like a sack of King Edwards! Come to think of it, he looks like a sack of spuds, too!

Here's a vid if you've not seen this fairly decent Castlevania:

"No way I'm gonna lose!" A Review of Blue Dragon (Japanese Version)

2007-06-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

There doesn't seem to be as much hype for Blue Dragon as there was last year. Maybe it's because Xbox 360 has got a lot of other, arguably bigger games in the West, that are much more anticipated and being released around the same time as BD in America. Bioshock, or The Darkness for example. But for once, Japan got a highly anticipated game first. That doesn't happen often here, especially in the pitifully small Japanese 360 market. Which is nice (^_^).

I've always thought Blue Dragon is a weird fit for the 360 market, especially here in Japan. Apart from the Chrono Trigger nostalgics (some of the key people on BD worked on Chrono), it's pretty obvious this game is aimed at kids, what with it's simplistic anime style and ease of difficulty. Which is strange because Xbox 360 is still pretty expensive and it's marketing is aimed more at the hardcore and fans of Apple iPods and iMacs, i.e. adults with disposable income. Not many kids can afford a 360, especially when here they've already got a Wii and/or a DS! It's not that kids don't want BD. I've spoken to plenty of kids (I'm an English teaching assistant) at school who want to play BD, who have BD shitajiki, watch the show and read the Shonen Jump manga. They just plain can't afford it! Doh!(>_<)

So what is Blue Dragon? It's an RPG, groomed to be Microsoft's Great White Hope in Japan. With the Chrono Trigger "dream team" of Hironobu Sakaguchi producing, Akira Toriyama on character designs and Nobuo Uematsu on the er, wheels of steel, Blue Dragon stars Shu, a teenage boy who hates to lose and his friends in their fight to prevent a psychopathic California Raisin called Nene from destroying the world. Because he's a dick.

Blue Dragon is chock full of JRPG cliches, such as a hero with no parents, teenagers with courage who gain powers to defeat a world-threatening evil, mini games, side quests, etc. It even has a mascot enemy like the Final Fantasy and Dragonquest series in the shape of the "Unchi-kun" which you might call Poop-kun or Poopy Snakes in English. They're cute, fun and kids laugh whenever poo is mentioned (^_^)

A Poop-kun, two of the heroes and a Fat Poop-kun at the back. Wouldn't want to try squeezing that one out...(>_<)

Enemies even drop Gold and Silver poo sometimes, which you can rummage around in for extra cash. The whole schtick of using shadows that fight rather than the actual characters is also unoriginal, having already been done in Okage: Shadow King on the PS2 several years ago.

But it doesn't matter. It's really fun, because it's not too taxing. It's so easy that you don't have to think about things too much. So much so that at the beginning it's a bit boring, but it picks up as you get to know the characters and become involved in the storyline.You can grind in BD while doing something else really easily. Normally that would be to a game's detriment, but here it's fun and it's good for people with limited time, like me. You can probably make it through the game just by running through playing only the battles you have to, but it's easy to max out BD's characters' levels if you try. Even before then, you gain so many skills that you can combine a la Final Fantasy V that you can own whole enemy parties with one charged up attack once you beef up the right ~~jobs~~ classes for your shadows. Skills to regenerate HP and MP, as well as plenty of potions and other things to find that will keep your heroes alive abound in this game. The only time I got a Game Over was in one special event where normal battle conditions go out the window.

Battles are usually fast, with quick cinematic cuts of your shadows taking out enemy parties. Things slow down when you have eight enemies on screen and they all cast exactly the same spell or technique in a row, though. Nice attention to detail for the shadow animations, as they attack in unique ways depending on the shadow and their current class, which is nice. When you lash out with a particularly meaty attack, you really feel it, too.

Many RPGs have mini games and times when normal battle conditions are changed for a special story event and BD is no different. They're quite enjoyable, and I wish there were a few more of the shooting sections because they're quite fun. In fact, there's a lot of under-utilisation. There are all kinds of items and spells to cure status effects, but enemies barely ever do anything except maybe cast sleep or dizzy, so what's the point of them? There's about ten upgrades for the airship shooting sections. But they're unnecessary, even to get some of the achievements. And the idea of pitting enemy parties against each other is great, but doesn't happen very much because opposing enemy parties are rarely near each other.

The presentation is a bit erratic. The graphics are SEGA-style blue skies and happiness, which makes for one cheerful game.

I especially felt really happy watching the ending. But while in some places there's plenty of detail, other areas are sparsely populated with people and objects. Even the main characters look a little too simple. I think in 1080i, which I played this in, if you zoom right in you can make out a lot detail on the shading and textures, but from a distance (which is how you'll play for most of the time) you can't really do that. Sound is equally erratic. Some tunes are kinda rubbish, but stick in your head (like the main battle theme). I absolutely loooove the boss theme, though. It's mega-cheese Japanese-sounding heavy metal (think the Sonic Adventure games), but with the awesome vocals of ex-Deep Purple and Black Sabbath lead singer Ian Gillan! I'm guessing many people will bitch about the game saying "Playable", "Defeated", etc. in a Stephen Hawkins-esque voice. I thought it was stupid at first, too, but I quite like it now. Even my wife keeps saying those voices!

So overall, a fun game. Fun enough for me to clock up over 100 hours on it and max everything out, which I don't do on most games. But I can see a lot of people not liking the childishness and apparent simplicity. Those disenfranchised with JRPG cliches should probably stay away. But I loved it. This is the kind of game that made me want to come to Japan in the first place! Check it out, and roll on Lost Odyssey!

For further details, check out 1up.com's coverage here.

You whaaaaaaat???!!!

Look at the bazooms on that booth babe!

Legali$e

2007-06-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hey there Nerfherder fans,

A bit of good news that I forgot to tell you guys. It's a bit old, having happened almost 2 weeks ago, but... I passed my driving test! And in Japanese, too! None of that namby-pamby written exam in English pap for me! W00T!(^o^)

So as a newly licenced driver I have to stick these:

on the front and back of my car for the first year. I just know I'm gonna forget to do that at some point.

But at least I'm now legal and can officially drive on the streets like this now:

The streets of Neo-Fukuoka are about to ASPLODE!

Game Videos of the Week

2007-06-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hey-ho, here's some vids I saw this week on 1up's sister site, gamevideos.com, that caught my eye, because they were funny or cool.

Here's Hitler, yes, that Hitler going apeshit over his Xbox Live account:

This is teamawesomerocks really funny and well-produced fake trailer for a sequel to Punch Out:

And finally, the dramatic intro to upcoming PSP remake, Castlevania - Dracula X:

Watch the first couple of minutes in this video and witness the cheesetabulousness of the original intro for the PC Engine. Awesome game, though, and a lovely haunting song on title screen after the intro:

'Ello, Poppet! It's My PotC3 Review Spectacular!

2007-06-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, there fellow Nerfherders,

and welcome back to my Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Pirates 3) review. I'm posting it a lot later than I anticipated because I had to study for my driving test on Monday. Then I decided to catch up on some FFV Advance yesterday. Got to the Library of Ancients if anyone's interested! Then there's that thing people are already calling "work"...(^_^;

*Ahem* So, Pirates 3. First of all, I have to admit finding both Pirates 1, a bit meh and Pirates 2 very disappointing respectively when I first saw them at the cinema. But later, my friend therealpidge's enthusiasm for Pirates 1 rubbed off on me and I came to like the first one a lot. So much so I was pretty excited when I heard they were turning the franchise into a trilogy, filming the next two back to back, The Matrix-style. You know The Matrix. That trilogy of techno-kung fu movies that should have been awesome.

From Kung-Fu Coolness... to Major Assness (^_^)

So just like The Matrix, I should have realised there would be disappointment, but I didn't, so I went into Pirates 2 hyped up and came out quite disappointed. Why was Jack Sparrow suddenly such a massive dick to everyone, even the good guys? What the hell was he planning? Why were the "good guys" stabbing each other in the back? OK, maybe I'm overstating how bad The Matrix and the Pirates series are. I can happily sit down and watch the great one liners and special FX. But to come down from such high standards... I really feel it.

So this time, I was prepared for meh-ness of the finest summer blockbuster vintage. While it's no Matrix Revolutions, it's not suck-my-blue-balls-dry-baby amazing, either. But seeing as I was prepared for the worst, Pirates 3 was pretty good, actually.

Sparrow, you're coming to the Prom with me whether you like my Fu Manchu 'tache or not!

Of course the movie looked fantastic from beginning to end, although because there's lots more scenes that occur while the characters are sailing across the world, there's not a lot of variety, unlike the first two. I didn't think it was such a big deal. They are pirates after all, and pirates do a lot of sailing, right? (^_^) But my wife thought it was a little boring to look at. While I suppose that's true, I wasn't bothered by the lack of variety, if indeed, there was any.

My main beef is that keeping track of the plot felt like I was just about managing to tread water. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, Jack/Will/Barbossa/Elizabeth's scheming would throw me for a loop and I'd go under the proverbial water for a few seconds... again. Glub-glub!

ZZ Top facial hair was started by 18th Century Singapore pirates... fact

There were lots of fun moments, however. I especially like Jack Sparrow's er... "introspective" moments (I'm trying not to be spoilerific here), and the "nose" bit. The final kerfuffle across a whirlpool was excellent to watch, even though I couldn't make out some of the dialogue over the sound effects and booming music. Will seems to get less to do in this film except marry Liz and you know what at the end. But! Geoffrey Rush's Mad Bastard Acting Method(TM) as Captain Barbossa was hilarious! He stole every moment he was on screen. His confidence steering the Black Pearl off the end of the world was one of my favourite "Yarr! I be a poirate(sic)!" moments, much like when he shouted "Yarrrrr!" and chased after Johnny Depp whilst swinging his cutlass around in Pirates 1(^_^).

Yaaarrrr! You wouldn't happen to be having a Polo on your person, would ye now?

Maybe my opinion of Pirates 3 and especially 2 will improve when I see them at home, where I can absorb everyone's scheming in the comfort of my butt-creviced sofa(^_^). Overall, Pirates 3 was fairly fun to watch. So what did you guys think?

Wha? Nine pieces of eight!!?? How droll.

2007-06-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

I'll make this short, as it's been a long day and it's 2:30 in the a.m. Just came back from watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, or as it's misleadlingly titled here in Japan, "World End". Yeah, that's right, Japan gets the armageddon edit!!(^_^)

It was OK, but not particularly great. I'll probably update this post with a longer review so I can properly rant later. I did have some fun watching POTC3, especially the Big Jeff Mahoolah fight at the end.

And to answer a question my brother asked me recently, here's the secret scene after the looooong credits sequence:

Energy Low...

2007-05-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

Haven't been feeling too well recently. Just generally run down for some reason and I have this annoying cough/sore throat team-up that I got from shouting at little ickle Japanese kids in class all last week.

It's stupid hot here - well, it's only about 27-29 degrees C, but the humidity in Japan is killer. Time to break out the shorts!

I finally finished Blue Dragon a couple of weekends ago but haven't had the energy to do a proper review or any real blogging for that matter. I'll write something about my opinions on BD soon, though, and finish up a translation from Weekly Famitsu that I've been sitting on for a few weeks.

Haven't had much time or energy after work to play anything really, though I have managed to squeeze a few hours into...

I almost finished the Playstation version of FFV last year, but I lost my save data in a freak gamma ray accident. Don't get my memory card angry. You wouldn't like it when he's angry...

The reason I chose to play the GBA version is because it supposedly has better graphics and a better translation. While I suppose that's true, the graphics don't look that much better. Bizarrely, the graphics in my FFV Advance clock that I use on my mobile phone look much better than the GBA game itself! I don't know about phones in the west, but you gotta love the stuff you can download for phones here in Japan!(^_^)

As for the translation, well, yeah, it is better, but I enjoyed Faris' cheesy-shit pirate-y dialogue from the Playstation version. Made me laugh every time! Faris' dialogue is at times just as nonsensical in the GBA version, though. "Quit your lollygagging", anyone? It's still a fun game, the job system is great, although it feels a little nerfed compared to Blue Dragon's more versatile job system.

Well, that's it for now fellow Nerfherders, come back again soon, y'hear? (^_^)

SoloNerfherder is feeling...

2007-05-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

I've been real busy with work and studying for/trying to go through all my lessons and qualify for my practical driving test (still have to do my written exam, though, ugh). So I haven't had time, Red Bull or health powerups to blog. I'll be back tomorrow or Wednesday with more...

Nice to see therealpidge come back to civilisation, and hello Alexandra, welcome to my friends list! (^_^)

Blue Dragon, Thanks for Nothing! (-_-#)

2007-05-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

3:30am. The first time I've had a late night gaming sesh in many moons. With my wife asleep, I am alone, my wireless headphones enveloping me in Blue Dragon's world. I'm having fun (^_^). Running through the Ancient Factory on Disc 2, about half an hour of hard grinding from the last save point, and this happens:

Game crash as a battle fades out to the field again. Blue Dragon, you total bar steward.

"Your friendly neighbourhood... aww, you know!"

2007-05-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

Ho-lee crap,
Japan Gets Movie Before the US Shocker!

Whilst Japan usually gets movies dead last in the international release schedule, yesterday saw an early release of Spider-Man 3, presumably to coincide with the annual Golden Week holiday here.

Seeing as I virtually live at the local cinema (i.e. I go there quite a lot - I'm not a homeless dude living in the cinema doorway!), I rushed down to my local multiplex to see Spidey's newest adventure (Sorry therealpidge, looks like they stopped showing the Gegege no Kitarou ads now that the movie has been released, so I couldn't sneak a recording of them for you!).

I gotta say that I freakin' loved it. Screw the haters. Going in, I was expecting to be disappointed because there were going to be so many characters in it - the established guys, plus Venom/Eddie Brock, Sandman, Gwen Stacy... it could have been a recipe for disaster. Right Batman and Robin? (^_^)

But somehow, it pulls it off! I loved how they managed to balance the movie and pack so much story in. If there's one caveat, it's that Venom doesn't get enough time onscreen, and when he does, it's more Brock's face poking out of the Venom suit than Venom itself. Venom's also a lot less 'roided up than the comics and cartoons. Sandman's scenes are excellently played, although you have to wonder should he really get away with so much in the name of saving his daughter? The part where Sandman comes out of the sand for the first time was great. I felt like I was watching the birth of a new creature, as he tried to find his feet... and arms, hands, face, etc. (^_^)

For the first time, Spidey is the one who gets tied up

It is a long movie (139 mins., I believe), but I didn't get bored for a second. There are some surreal moments of humour that I bet will take a lot of flak, mainly involving Venom symbiote-influenced Emo-Parker, but I was laughing like a drain when I saw them! Even some of the audience were laughing out loud, which is a little unusual in a Japanese cinema. Usually I'm the only one laughing with my (Japanese) wife telling me to shut up because I'm embarrassing her! The now customary Bruce Campbell cameo got a good reaction from everyone, too.

Dig that black Hitler hair!

There are a lot of holes that critics have mentioned already, but I was sucked in from the "Story So Far" opening titles, and the first flight'n'fight through the streets of New York was the spray cream on the cake for me. If you're going to get bent out of shape about why an alien symbiote just happens to land by Peter Parker, then why are you watching a movie about a dude who gets superpowers from a radioactive spider bite? Just enjoy this wonderful Hollywood event movie - with some of the key crew and stars expressing doubts about wanting to make another - it may be the last we'll see.

Spidey realises the Axe Effect just wore off

She must have been hit with the hawt stick since Lady in the Water!

Sweep yer chim-a-neys for yer?

Ge, Ge, Ge, Ge-Ge, Ge-Ge...

2007-04-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Today is my first quiet day in a while where I get time to think and do my own thing. Which is why I haven't posted in a week. This last week or so has been pretty hectic with crunch time coming on my driving lessons and me actually having work to do at school for a change! Great, but bad timing to have everything come at me at the same time!

This post is really for you, therealpidge, seeing as you watched a whole load (the entire run?) of the original anime GeGeGe no Kitarou when you were here in Japan.

As you can see from the pic above, a live action movie based on the anime was released in cinemas here on Saturday. It's not top on my list, but I'd like to see it soon. The main reason I'm posting about this is just to mention the hilarious adverts they've been running in the local Warner Mycal cinema. As far as I can tell they were made exclusively for Warner Mycal. You know those ads they have where they ask you to shut yer damn pie hole and turn your phone off during the movie? Well, they get the yokai (Japanese supernatural) creatures from the movie to demonstrate how not to behave in a cinema - with amusing results. I tried searching for them on the web to no avail. Maybe I can sneak a recording home with my mobile phone and post them on Youtube or something when I go see Spider-Man 3 on Tuesday.

For anyone who's interested, here's some info on the movie in English and the movie's official website in Japanese.

You've got the GeGeGe game for the Famicom, haven't you?

What surprised me was finding out today that it got released in English as Ninja Kid! Especially as he's not a ninja... (^_^;

Well, I'll be back in the next couple of days with more info!

BoomBoom Nova

2007-04-19T06:34:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention yesterday how this TV advert

has been making me laugh every time I see it on Japanese TV. Well the 15 second version makes me laugh. This 30 second version gets the comedy timing a bit wrong.

In case you don't know, NOVA are one of the more popular English conversation (eikaiwa) schools in Japan. I have to stop myself from laughing out loud like a loony when I think about this ad!

My wife wonders if this ad was made to divert attention from the recent murder of NOVA teacher Lindsey Ann Hawker.

Somehow I doubt that, as I assume it would take more time to plan and approve a TV ad, but what do I know?

After the bungled attempt to arrest the prime suspect and the ensuing manhunt, I wonder if he'll really be caught now that attention has turned to the gunning down of the mayor of Nagasaki and the Virginia Tech massacre.

Sorry to go all serious on you guys, but that's what's on my mind right now. My thoughts go out to all the victims of these terrible events.

Random Task!

2007-04-18T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, random stuff, actually, but I couldn't resist the Austin Powers reference!

I haven't blogged in a week because I've had a lot on my plate. The new school year has started so I'm back at work again, but at the start of the year there's very little for me to do except turn up to work and veg out! Funny how I arrive home from work tired from a hard day's veg...

But I have been doing lots of driving lessons and studying for the written test. It's not fun trying to remember all those figures and tables they make you learn - it's even harder doing it in Japanese.

A few weeks ago I had to do a kind of crash course in first aid for drivers if there's a car accident. Doctor Who viewers may find the following photos disturbing...

Another insidious Auton invasion? You decide.

Not long to go now till the end of my course. Fingers crossed I pass the test!

In other news... Red Bull finally comes to my town!

Yay! It's only in one shop - the local Doutor cafe - but at least it's finally come to Fukuoka. After 8 years of living in Japan I can finally start up my Red Bull addiction again!(^o^)

And now something a little more tech/video game-related...

I'm sure there are many gamers who have a significant other who isn't in to video games as much as they are. And a lot of times you're playing a game or watching TV but they tell you to turn that goddamn noise down. Especially now my wife is pregnant, the sound of chainsawing Locust in Gears of War isn't exactly what she wants to hear (or see for that matter!) while she's dealing with morning sickness!

So it was time to do something about it. I hate cables - as anyone has who's seen my apartment is aware, I probably have enough game-related cables to run around the world! So I decided to invest in some wireless surround sound headphones. And here they are:

Yes, I do look like a total tool in that photo (^_^). After I took it I remembered this:

Ah, Dreamcast, we knew ye for but a short time...

I got the Panasonic RP-WF6000-K, if anyone's interested. Really comfortable headphones compared to the others in my local Yodobashi Camera electronics store. Plus they were on a time sale and I used my points I stored up there. So I took them home for only 15,000 yen! Pretty tasty! It makes such a difference now I can play games or watch TV as much as I like without disturbing the ~~ol' ball and chain~~ wife! (^_^)

Shout out to all my friends reading this and my brother. I'm outta here!

360 and Jaguar Get It Ooohhhnnnn!

2007-04-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Haven't we seen this before? Hmm...

Ah, yes, so we have. (^_^)

Rival Schools - FIGHT!

2007-04-06T06:27:00.000-07:00

Well, rival classes, anyway (^_^).

Here's one of the things I've been meaning to write about for a little while, but other things got in the way. It's almost over now, but the Spring Holidays (and therefore end of school year holidays) have kicked in here in ~~sunny old~~ frickin' cold Japan, along with the hanami season.

At the end of the Japanese school year, at least in the town I live in, every school has what they call a "class match", an inter-class sports competition. The boys play ~~soccer~~ football and the girls play volleyball against each other.

Only the first years and second years (7th and 8th graders) fight it out because the 3rd years have graduated and are on holiday by this time.

The boys play soccer out on the sunny and quite windy playground in a tournament-style competition, each half lasting 10 minutes. Usually the boys are quite vocal, shouting out encouragement to their teammates on the field, but this year, they seemed ~~like they couldn't give a shit~~ pretty subdued:

The guys on the sidelines even had time to start burying this dude in the sand!

Trust me, the kid on the right is throwing sand - he's not trying to go "south of the border" on that guy in the centre, although that would have been a lot funnier! (^o^)
The guys aren't that good, hey - they're not pros yet - so most of the matches are goal-less draws that go to penalties. Kind of a lame way to decide who's the best, but there you go.

The girls' volleyball tourney has a very different atmosphere. I guess as with girls all over the world, they tend to team up and get on with each other a lot better. There's a lot more cheering and clapping, team huddles and general cheerfulness.

Sorry all you weirdo jailbait-huntin' Japanese schoolgirl fetish anime porn watching chikan, no Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball shenanigans for you here! Not even any sand, the boys have to deal with that.

Something I didn't realise until this year is that the kids make their own programmes which are very detailed and contain lots of hand drawn pics, like this:

I was surprised how much effort some of the kids go to for the class matches. Pretty cool. I also like how the homeroom teachers really get involved and support their own classes' teams, which encourages the kids no end.

I didn't pay close attention to who won in the end, but a few days later, I did notice this poster up in one of the classrooms:

Yup, Class 2-1, you guys sure got ~~game~~ victory.

Blue Dragon Anime Series Coming!

2007-04-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

So, for the last week or so I've been playing Blue Dragon, or Le Dragon Bleu, if you wear a stripy shirt and beret. It's pretty cool. I love the graphics and the awesomely cheesemungous boss theme.

Anyway, I just noticed and downloaded the Blue Dragon anime preview on Xbox Live (Japan). It looks OK, but the voices don't sound as good. They used a different voice cast, although in the case of the hero, Shu, that's a good thing. His deep voice that's obviously being performed by a female voice actress kinda sucks. I feel a bit embarassed when he says, "Ore ha makene- ze!" (I never lose!), which is pretty often.

Also, this is the first time I can say a game looks better than a TV show/movie. There's something about the TV show's art style that makes Akira Toriyma's chara designs rough looking and not as pleasant to look at.

Apparently this is old news to the hardcore anime peeps, but it's news to me! Strange that the trailer would go up on Xbox Live today considering the show starts tomorrow morning! Nice work on the marketing there!

It's Alive!!!!!!

2007-04-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

Having sacrificed Japanese virgins on the altar of the great Incan chicken god Cluccacuc, I have restored life to my dead iMac! In fact, it's running better than ever, though it's taken me a long time to find and install all the modifications I'd done to it before. So I'm a happy chappy again.

I probably will still get a MacPro at some point, but I can put it off for a little bit longer - say after this summer's Apple Conference when Steve Jobs will no doubt announce something better, like an 8 Core MacPro or Leopard finally coming out! The other reason I should wait and save some more money is a far more important reason:

This is an ultrasound picture of my unborn child! Yep, it's official! I'm going to be a Dad! Time to break out the tweed slippers and cardigans... NOT! Exciting and scary, yet incredibly awesome, too. I don't know what else to say... Things are going to get verrry different from here on out!

I know I keep promising to write something about EDF, but I haven't had much time lately (see above!). Seeing as probably everyone who's interested already has EDF 2017 for Xbox 360, I'll be concentrating on the older games in the series and their side games - which is going to take a bit more time to research! In the meantime, I'll post lots of little tidbits that have been burning a hole in my blog pocket for a while now... Come back tomorrow for tidbit no. 1! '-)

Wii Wagglin'

2007-04-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

As if waggling with a Wiimote didn't make you look stupid already...

Now there's this from Thinkgeek!

Bad Breath Computer Death

2007-03-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry kids, been meaning to write but my computer's HDD is fried. Big sobs (T_T)

I'm running on a backup which barely works so I won't be up to full speed for a while. Still, this means I can upgrade soon! Made a promise to the wife to wait till the next Mac models come out, which according to macrumors.com, should be anytime now. Hurry up Steve Jobs and get those new Mac Pros out the door ya bastard!!!!!

Koropokkur

2007-03-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hello, this preview of Harvest Moon and what went into it (see post titled Korobokkuru) inspired me to test my translating chops on this Japanese Wikipedia article about the legendary Koropokkur. Its link to video gaming is pretty tenuous. This was just an opportunity to practice my Japanese and test out some free blogging software I found. Hence you'll find links to stuff everywhere because they're so easy to do(^_^). I have lots of other stuff to write about of a gamey flavour (Mmm-mm, EDF toffee delight!) and a Japanesey flavour (used panties, cigarettes and beer flavour apparently!) in the next few days, so come back soon! Oh, I added some links into the translation that weren't in the original Japanese for peeps who want to know more. Unfortunately some of the links to Japanese sites may not work. The addresses are correct, but when I clicked on them to check if they worked I got redirected to my 1UP page. With my limited HTML skills, I can't explain why... hope they work for you. I was unable to verify a few of the Japanese names. They are the ones without links.

Well, to the adventurous, read on, to those with an IQ of 80 and below, turn back now, you're gonna crash!

Koropokkur

Koropokkur are little people that appear in Ainu legends. The name in Ainu is generally understood to mean "The people under the butterbur leaves." P and b sounds are not differentiated in Ainu, hence they are also known as Korobokkur. Ainu legends of these little people are widely known in places such as Hokkaido, Minamichishima, and Karafuto. As well as Koropokkur/Korobokkur, there are also instances where they are called Tichiseunkur, Tichisekocchakamui and Tonchi (which all mean "Pit dwellers").

Legends

While Ainu legends of these little people are widely known in places such as Hokkaido, Minamichishima, and Karafuto, there are variations depending on the region. The following story is mostly the same in each version.

Before the Ainu started living on this land there was a race known as the Koropokkur living here. Small in stature, fleet of foot, they were skillful fishermen who lived in pits with roofs made from butterbur leaves.
They were benevolent and friendly with the Ainu, giving them game such as deer and fish and trading items with them. But they never wanted to show themselves and so they traded by leaving things at night in places such as windows.
One day, a young Ainu tried to see a Koropokkur by lying in wait for the little people to actually leave some gifts. Whilst a Koropokkur was leaving some gifts, the young Ainu grabbed the Koropokkur's hand and pulled it indoors. The young Ainu had pulled in what appeared to be a beautiful lady with tattoos on the back of her hands (It is said that Ainu wives having tattoos comes from this incident).
The Koropokkur went into a rage over the young Ainu's insolence, so from that day on, the Koropokkur were never seen by the Ainu ever again. To this day, there are still pits in many places and if you dig, stone implements and earthenware which are traces of them once living on this land.

Depending on the region, there are variations in the mythology such as; "The Koropokkur were a lazy people that the Ainu gave food to," or, "The Ainu custom of tattooing originally came from worrying that the Koropokkur would take back the land the Ainu had taken from them, so they put tattoos on the Koropokkur's hands."

(If you're wondering, "Wha? How does tattooing the little buggers help?" You've got me. This makes no sense to me or my wife (who's Japanese). She has a strong suspicion that this part of the Wiki was not written by a native Japanese, hence my having a hard time trying to make sense of it!)

The Koropokkur Debate

In 1886, Shozaburo Watase wrote in the inaugural issue of Anthropological Society Report that the ruins of pit dwellings that could be seen in the Sapporo area were made by the Koropokkur and that this was proof that the Koropokkur had been living there before the Ainu. Later, Shogoro Tsuboi wrote in issue 9 of Anthropological Society Report that he mostly agreed with Shozaburo Watase. However, Kotaro Shirai, in the same issue published his opposing theory anonymously. Yoshikiyo Koganei, Kosaku Hamada, Denzo Sato, Ryuuzou Torii, Sadakichi Kita and many other researchers got involved in the argument. Ultimately the debate continued until 1913, when Tsuboi died in St. Petersburg, Russia and the theory that the Koropokkur really existed went into decline.
However, the debate not only changed the course of Ainu research by popularising the theory that the Ainu are the indigenous people of northern Japan (The Ainu theory) over the theory that they are not (The pre-Ainu theory), but also widely caused great leaps forward in Japanese anthropology, folk studies and archaeology.

Koropokkur-Themed Works

In 1959, Satoru Sato had a novel about the Koropokkur published called The Little Country Nobody Knows which formed the currently accepted view of the Koropokkur. This book became part of the Korobokkur Tales series. Sequels included The Dog As Small As A Bean, The Little Person Who Fell From The Stars, The Boy With The Strange Eyes and More Tales From The Little Country.

These books were turned into an anime series called Korobokkur Adventures in 1973.

In The Little Country Nobody Knows, Satoru Sato has his main character say that perhaps the Koropokkur and Sukunabikonanomikoto are of the same race.

The Koropokkur also appear in the Bokujo Monogatari (Harvest Moon) video game series to help with farming chores and give advice to the main character.

Play some Sphinx, dammit!

2007-03-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

Helloooo...

So, from one fairly unknown game to another - Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy.

I finished it just over a week ago. I was going to finish Gears of War, but, meh. Yeah, sorry, I'm the one person who doesn't think Gears of War is the mutt's nuts. So sue me. Or yosumi! That one's just for therealpidge, if you're reading (^_^)

I was going to play Blue Dragon or Earth Defence Force 3 for 360, but they'd both disappeared from my local 2nd hand game shop! So much for getting them cheap, I thought.

So, Sphinx. I bought Sphinx a couple of years back when my wife and I went to Tokyo and I found some import games in Akihabara. That must seem weird to people not in Japan, importing Western games! I played Sphinx a little at the time I bought it, but bigger games came along that left Sphinx to get dusty. It was on Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox. I got the Xbox version and I decided to play it on my 360 this time, just to see how robust the backwards compatibility emulator is. It plays like it should, nice 'n' smooth, although the attract sequence video (not the sound, strangely) is stuttery and it froze on the title screen once. Otherwise, it plays great, in fact I'm wondering if the emu isn't enhancing the graphics a bit. I remember it looked - surprisingly for such a little known game - rather good on Xbox when I tried it out 2 years ago. I just tried out it out on original flavour Xbox again and it's still good, but I think the 360 rezzes the graphics up (ooh, how technical!). The textures are really detailed, the landscapes and SFX are beautiful and dramatic, bursting with rich colours.

The 360 really brings the colours and textures out, so play it on 360 rather than an old gen system if you can. It's pretty sad when a 4 year old game looks better than Phantasy Star Universe on 360. Man alive that was a lazy PS2 port... *sigh* Suffice to say, this game looks pretty damn good, especially when you consider its age. The developers weren't even at the "We've squeezed everything out the machine because we're at the end of its life cycle" stage!

Like Kya Dark Lineage (see my last blog entry), this is a game that isn't perfect, but deserves to be better recognised. It's a sort of Diet Zelda. The game switches between the titular 2 characters. The meat of the game belongs to Sphinx and his Zelda-like sections, with interludes starring Tutankahmen, who has been turned into a mummy. These bits are just explore and puzzle sections. These sections are interesting because seeing as you are a mummy, you can't die as you're already (un)dead! If you fail or (literally) fall, you just reappear at a checkpoint. The Mummy's bits actually play on this immortality. Many of the puzzles revolve around burning, electrifying or flattening The Mummy and using the Mummy in that state somewhere else.

I like how the music changes depending on what state The Mummy is in, especially the light swing jazz music (think of the music in the movie The Mask) when The Mummy runs around on fire.

There's one bit that's much more frustrating than the rest of the game where you have to get past these mechanical eyes. If they see you, doors close. To get by them, you can go invisible, but only when you stand still. Not only is the timing hard as the eyes swing to and fro, but I swear I've been caught lots of times just because the fucker wouldn't cloak when I told him to! Much swearing and scaring my wife was involved at that point. I probably got a few ulcers from that. Phew.

Sphinx's bits are fairly good, nothing to spooge over (except those beautiful fantasy Egyptian landscapes and colourful skies!), but they're OK. There are towns, people to meet and do things for, places to go, places you can't go yet because you don't have the correct doodad - it's Zelda, just not quite as well developed - but then I don't think Eurocom has Nintendo's clout to make a proper Zelda. The only game that I've played that's given Zelda a run for its money is Okami. Combat certainly pails in comparison to Zelda. It's not crap, but there's no lock on, and the shield isn't as responsive, so I rarely used it. There are less attacks, too, although this game is more about puzzles than combat. You do seem to collect a lot of things that only get used once, which is a shame. The camera gets stuck in places, but less than Kya Dark Lineage.

Sphinx doesn't have much of a character. He has no lines in cutscenes nor does he emote all that much.

This is as about as much emotion as you'll get out of How-do-I-poop-when-I've-got-a-tail-where-my-bum-should-be Sphinx.

The Mummy is a better character. I particularly like when he winks and says, "Hey!" at the camera (^_^).

Speaking of, er... speaking, this game is crying out for a little cartoony voice acting. For all the graphical splendour and fairly atmospheric music this game brings, it's quite jarring that all the dialogue is text only. Maybe the devco forgot to hire voice actors...?

The developers, Eurocom, must have cared a lot about the game considering the effort they put into creating this fantasy Egyptian world. It seems like they thought the characters had legs enough for a series, because once you beat the fairly easy final boss, you get an ending that, while not a big cliffhanger, doesn't resolve everything, either. It's quite an annoying ending because it's quite short and one character does something that I think is meant to be a joke but just ends up making you feel that part of the game story was a waste of time. I'm trying hard not to write any spoilers, but... well, you'll know when you see it. Anyway, despite its faults, it is a satisfying game and I certainly would be happy to hear that an improved sequel is in the works. Unfortunately no one talks about Sphinx these days. If you're looking for a decent game in between those big A-listers like God of War 2 and ooh, Mass Effect, I recommend Sphinx, you might be pleasantly surprised!

I don't wanna know what's going on in this pic, but it sure looks rude! (>_<);

A slightly retro look at Kya Dark Lineage

2007-03-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

Well, hey there fellow nerfherders, and welcome to my 2nd blog entry.

Anyone see that "Yo Soy Kratos" video on Gamevideos.com? What the hell is that dude saying? Anyone? (^_^;

So a few weeks ago I finished a little known platformer/3D exploration game for PS2 called Kya: Dark Lineage. It came out 2 or 3 years ago.

Kya is a game that isn't perfect, but deserves to be better recognised. 1UP's own Retronauts overlord Jeremy Parish made a throwaway criticism about Kya in his Death of Game Mascots podcast a while back, which slightly irked me, because I was enjoying the game immensely at the time.

So what is Kya: Dark Lineage? Take Jak and Daxter 1's platforming. Mix in Super Monkey Ball's vertigo-inducing stages. What happens? You get a sprawling connected 3D world with stages floating in the sky that'll cause heart attacks in agrophobics. (^_^)

Kya is a teenage girl from Earth, but she falls into another world with her half brother where the good natives are known as - and this is the clever part - Nativs. (^_^). The Nativs have been turned into enemy Wolfen(stein?). You have to beat the Wolfen up till they're unconscious and exorcise the Wolfen curses from them. The more you exorcise, the more shops with juicy new upgrades get built in their home village. So not only is it fun to "collect" Nativs, it actually helps you in the game.

There are two really cool things about this game.
It is a great example of how to use your story/world's themes to influence the gameplay. The main theme of Kya is air/wind. Seeing as the whole world Kya finds herself in floats high above the clouds, wind blows all over the place, and you often have to master its currents to get from A to B.

Depth of field is another theme. The draw distance is incredible for a PS2 game. Like Jak and Daxter 1, the stages are connected (but with fairly well-disguised loading time wind tunnels/Stargate tunnels) to form one world, and each stage is Big Jeff Mahoolah huge. You can, for example, get to the top of an island and look down around you at the rest of the stage, even zooming in with added detail if you have the telescope. Sometimes you can even dive off to those far areas! There are bits where you actually have to freefall down huge shafts for minutes at a time avoiding obstructing crud, too, which are good fun.

The other cool thing is this game's McGuffin for collecting. Normally in these kinds of games, there's some shit you have to collect a billion of in order to get a bonus (I'm looking at you, DK64), and Kya is no exception - but with a twist. The collectible is actually your enemy, the Wolfen, who you have to render unconscious then break their curses to release the good Nativs within.
You have to sometimes be pretty cunning at exorcising the Wolfen. They are often placed in precarious or hard to reach positions, and figuring out how to knock them out without Kya dying or knocking the Wolfen into the void below is what makes the combat enjoyable. Sure, you can miss them out (oh yeah, this game is very non-linear, which is very cool), or knock them off the island into the clouds below, but that doesn't help you much in the end, because they'll just respawn when you die or leave the area. So exorcising them means they'll be permanently removed from that area! Bonus!
Stealth plays an important part so you can reach many of the enemies.

There's a lot of satisfaction when you get the drop on them and beat them to a pulp with Kya's acrobatic capoeira punches and kicks, especially the bigger Wolfen.

Strangely for this sort of game, the heroine has a lot of beat 'em up moves that you have to string into combos to effectively take on the Wolfen. While the platforming engine reminds me a lot of Jak 1, the combat makes me think of The Mark of Kri.

Enemies gang up around Kya and you have to do some fairly difficult joypad gymnastics to bust out the better moves, just like Kri. But it doesn't have Kri's right analogue stick targetting. Ah yes, targetting, one of Kya's weak points. There's no way to lock onto enemies, so your punches sometimes miss. But any competent gamer can deal with it - I did, and I'm hardly the world's best gamer.

Many call out the camera in this game, and with good reason. The camera sucks in places, as does the storyline, but the worlds (and thanks to the decent art style, they really do feel like different worlds) are great. The camera is fine most of the time, and it certainly doesn't break the game.

Rather than the camera, the worst part of the game is its annoying difficulty spikes, which are mainly on the landboarding/halfpipe sections. There's a few times where you have to slide down looooooong stretches of land avoiding obstacles and gaps to get to the end.

Some are fantastic to watch - you're being chased by lava down a canyon or up a tower in the final part of the game. They're a real pain to beat, though, compared to the rest of the game. Most of the stages have plenty of checkpoints, but the later boarding sections require the player to pull off a lot of difficult manoeuvres in sequence to get to the end, which can be very frustrating when you flub up just once and drown (and burn!) in lava. The varying difficulty is particularly noticable at the end with an extremely difficult tower climb/spiral shaped board section and a sneeze-and-he'll-keel-over-dead final boss.

Overall a very fun game, I'm glad to have had the chance to play it, but misjudged difficulty spikes and a shitty short cliffhanger ending. Ugh. I hate cliffhanger endings to games you know will never get a sequel... 'sup Advent Rising?

Anyone out there have any annoying cliffhanger endings that you know will ever get resolved?

My First Blog

2007-03-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

That sounds so Fisher Price, doesn't it?

Hi, my name's Carl, and this is my first ever blog. Way to come late to the party, huh? I guess I never really felt a need to be published - until now!

Well, let's give this blog thing a whirl.

I'm 30 years old and from England but I've lived in Japan (Fukuoka area) for the last 8 years or so. My Japanese isn't perfect, but it's good enough to fool some Japanese on the phone and online into thinking I'm one of "The Natives"! (^_^) I'm married to a closet gamer. Well, toilet gamer. (^_^; My wife gets a lot of game time on DS Tetris, Zookeeper, Brain Age, those sorts of games. But you won't catch her playing Biohazard 4 (I hate the name Resident Evil - sounds like Evil is a guest in a hotel!) or Earth Defence Force 3 like I do.

I've been playing games ever since my Dad bought a BBC "B" Micro back in the early '80s. I have a lot of memories of typing in program listings for arcade game clones into that computer. I've had and still have a lot of old gaming systems since then including the Sega Megadrive, Saturn, PS1, PS2, PC Engine and loads more. I mostly play PS2 and Xbox 360 stuff nowadays.

My favourite games include:

Not Halo 2 with its disappointing storyline - ptooie!

I'm not really sure what exactly I'll be writing about, but obviously there'll be games galore, especially ones that don't get covered so much by the press - I played a couple I liked recently; Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy and Kya - Dark Legacy.

Like Milky on the 1UP Editors' Blogs, I'll probably rant about stuff that has nothing to do with games, such as being a foreigner in Japan. Much as I love it here and wouldn't swap it for going back to live in England, there's a whole lot of weirdness and "Huh? Why are things like this?" in Japan. Look forward to it!

That's it for today;

Hope you have a great day wherever you are,
and Happy White Day to all of you out there in Interwebland!