Here's an interesting one. I don't know if you've ever played Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun (roughly translated as Kid Dracula), but there's something odd about Dracula-kun. See, the thing is that he looks alarmingly similar to the comic representation of myself. I'm sure you've seen the Ryan character a million times by now, but just take a look at lil' Dracky-Kun!

The similarity is undeniable! I was so shocked by this revelation that I even wrote and drew a comic about it. Not great comic by any standards, but it gets the point out there.

So obviously if there's any plagiarist here, it's me, because the original Kid Dracula was released on the NES Famicom waaaay back in 1991. But even then it was only ever released in Japan. I did read the article in Nintendo Power about the Game Boy version like a million times though, so maybe it just kind of burned the character into my mind. Who knows? As a character whose appearance has changed quite a lot over time, I obviously never planned Ryan to look like that, but the powers that be had other plans, I guess. Thing is, I would have lived my entire life without noticing if it weren't for the magic of ROMs. To celebrate, let's all go play some ROMs. Particularly Kid Dracula!

As I mentioned in last night's post, I picked up the (cheap!) Wii Edition of Resident Evil 4. Hey, I didn't get the PS2 port, so it's not so bad. And I sold my GC copy and a few other games to fund the purchase anyway. But bugetary concerns aside, holy smokes!

Now, you may not believe me, because you're all cynical asses, but playing Resident Evil 4 with the Wii remote almost makes it feel like an entirely new game. I loved the laser sight of the original, really I did, but the aiming reticule is just so much more practical, even if it does make the game a tiny bit easier (NB: aiming at distances is now possible). The new knife features are great, particularly the "homing knife" as I like to call it, which, when you make a slashing motion with the remote, will automatically make Leon turn towards and slice anything within striking distance. It may again seem to ease up the difficulty, but really it's just a time-saver. Slashing to use the knife in itself is far more fun than button knifing, and boo to all those "but I don't want to move when I play games" douchebags. Laziness is the lamest excuse ever, and I should know. Also I like twitch reloading. It's fun.

But motion-control lavishing is not all I have to do today. No! I am also impressed by the new junk that Capcom added in when they ported the game to the PS2. The Separate Ways sub-game is very nice, but I am disappointed by the prerendered cutscenes. They are visibly crap in comparison to the real-time cutscenes in the main game (all the PS2 version's cutscenes were FMV, the GC's were all game engine). Capcom could have gone the extra quarter-mile and redone them in real-time to really impress me. But you know what? Griping about cutscene quality of what amounts to a really elaborate mini-game is superficial. I feel bad about it. I just really wish I could beat the game on pro difficulty, because I want to play with that sweet new laser weapon. Though that brings up another good point.

When I played through the game like four times on the GC, I always found it had a stable amount of challenge, and I never really took note of item underuse. Not that it was really hard, but it surely kept me on my toes. I remember the first time through I didn't have anywhere near enough money at any time, and health supplies would always find use. But when I blazed through it on the Wii, by the time I reached the bulldozer scenario, I noticed that things were getting a little cramped in my inventory. It only got worse by the time I faced off against Krauser in the ruins. And while the situation was getting a little better over time (that last area can get a litte hellish, and the helicpoter pilot was taking a lot of friendly fire liberties), but by the time I was ready to face the final boss, I still had almost as many healing items in my inventory as I'd used over the course of the game. Not only that, but all my weapons were top-level, and I still ahd plenty of pesetas to go around. Either the Wii version takes it a lot easier on you, or I've gotten really good at the game. I'm betting on the latter, because if it's true, maybe I'll finally be able to finish that stupid cabin scenario on pro. That's where my game always ended on the GC.

In summation, RE4 Wii Edition really kicks the llama's ass. No, wait, that's Winamp. But RE4 Wii is still damn sweet. Made me fall in love with the game all over again. If you never played another version - and you're a douche if you haven't - it's system-seller good. I can see logging at least as many hours into this one as I did with Zelda (two playthrough's worth), and I've already played this game multiple times.

Well, the tall one is now officially a high-school graduate. My parents feel very old, despite the fact that they are decidedly not.

My wisdom teeth came out last Wednesday, which I may have mentioned before, and things did not go nearly as well as I'd hoped. I mean, the surgery and everything went off without a hitch, but it took many days to heal! I had to call in sick on Sunday! I've never called in sick to work before... On the upside, for the most of my downtime, I had Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition by my side to ease the pain. Well, my pain anyway. I can't say the same for all those ganados. More on that tomorrow though.

So anyone else really like Zelda's redesign for Brawl? I love it. Though to be anal about it, it's Link who was originally a brunette! God damn.

In any case, I'm sure I must have mentioned this before, because I've told like everyone I know about it, but the official Smash Bros site is updating every weekday. It's usually nothing big, but on the odd days when they reveal a new item or remixed song, I'm a very happy me. The soundtrack, as it currently stands, is probably going to be a two-discer at least, and will totally be worth buying. The current handful of samples that are up on the site are fantastic. Motoi Sakuraba's take on the menu screen theme is wonderful, and it's just the menu theme. I really hope he gets to work on at least one more track, and I'm looking forward to Akihiro Honda's and Yoko Shimomura's contributions in particular.

But yes, the daily updates have pretty much been my reason to wake up in the morning for the past couple weeks. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm quite excited about this game. I know I'm getting my hopes up, but is it too much to ask for any Capcom character to show up? Doesn't have to be MegaMan you know. Arthur? Dan Hibiki? Nemesis? If Solid Snake can make the roster, I'm sure any of those are valid nominees.

So yeah. I was poking around the internets last week and came across the Odin Sphere artbook. Needless to say, I was impressed by the art direction, and the magnificent care that obviously went into creating even the minorest of characters (I love the mandragoras!), and the scenery is just fantastic. Of course, the brilliant art is what everyone agrees on about the game.

I happened to be in the mall on the weekend, and while I normally try to avoid the chain, I decided to stop into the EB and peruse their wares. As luck would have it, they actually did have Odin Sphere in, and, well, you know how I am with money. BUT! I have to say that it was $50 well spent, because just as I'd presumed, the game is right up my alley. There's a fun combat system and what's looking like a solid story, but the real enjoyment is in the very elaborate item juggling system. At least, that's where I find the meat of the game, being an obsessive-compulsive packrat. If you watched me play Odin Sphere, you'd probably think it's just all dull gardeining and item mixing, because that's what I've been doing with the bulk of the time I've spent with the game. To Hell with progressing the story! I want to make a potion that will fill the entire screen with phozons!

So anyway... Crap. I was totally going to make a completely different post today, but I guess that got derailed kinda quickly. Maybe I'll get into what I'd intended to be today's topic during the next couple days. I'll have nothing better to do, because I've taken the next three days off in hopes that that'll be long enough to recover from having my wisdom teeth torn out of my facehole. Which happens tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to that. I love eating, and unless I heal like a motherfucker (for which history will vouch that I do not), I won't be able to eat anything but milkshakes for a while. Not that I don't like milkshakes, but I'm really going to miss meat. And candy. Mostly the candy.

Back from my little vacation at the cottage. And just in time too!

My copy of Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii: Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! 2 arrived yesterday, and I couldn't be more excited about it. I enjoyed Elite Beat Agents to no end (still play it quite a bit, actually), and I've gotta say that the J-Pop soundtrack in Ouendan 2 is far less of a problem than I'd originally expected. In fact, most of the songs are really good. And it's maybe even a little harder than EBA too, as I've been playing "Sekai wa Sore o Ai to Yobundaze" on Hard for like an hour, and I still can't manage to get past the last part. But then again, "Jumping Jack Flash" took me a long time to finish too, so maybe they're equally difficult. We'll just have to wait and see how far into Very Hard I can get on Ouendan 2.

In other news... Er, I don't know. There was somehing else I meant to say today. OH! Wait... No, nevermind. I've long since forgotten, and I don't think it's coming back. That means time for more Ouendan!

I don't know what I was thinking when I assumed that most Wii users would prefer a physical challenge over a mental challenge. It certainly didn't hit me that most people voting would likely be lazy, physically inept gamers until after I had locked in my guess. To tell the truth, I'm really surprised that it came as close as it did. Maybe Nintendo really is reaching out to new people.

You know, scratch that. The thing that truly surprises me is that I still find the Everybody Votes Channel interesting.

I think this clip alone proves more than enough just how much better American Dad is than Family Guy.

For the second time in my life, I was saved by hip-hop. But that's another story...

It's been June for a few days now, and with another week of vacation looming on the horizon, I guess there's no better time to get the Band of the Month post done with is the present. This month? RUSH!

Yeah, that's right. It's mother fucking RUSH!!! I don't know... I kind of get excited when talking about Rush, or listening to Rush, or thinking about Rush... Odd obsession aside, I obviously love the band. For a while back in the day I really couldn't get why everyone seemed to like them so much, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I still don't quite understand it, but Rush is up near the top of the list of my favourite bands.

What better time to do a Band of the Month on Rush than June? The answer: May. Seven days ago May to be particular, when they released their most recent album: Snakes And Arrows. I only picked it up yesterday (what in God's name took so long?), and to tell the truth, I was really looking for Harlequin's new disc, Waking The Jester, but had no luck there. Snakes and Arrows was technically my consolation prize... Damn. It's odd though, because I've heard their new single "Far Cry" on the radio tons of times, and each time I said to myself that I should go pick up the CD, but it never really happened until yesterday. Odd.

Anyhow, Rush has a pretty nice place in mainstream entertainment too. Not only is "Spirit of Radio" the Trailer Park Boys Movie theme (not to mention that the Big Dirty Band was founded by Alex Lifeson and features Geddy Lee), but there was a whole episode revolving around them in season four; it remains one of my favourite episodes. The wicked instrumental piece "YYZ" is one of the most fun songs to play in Guitar Hero 2, and Fry's "Rush mixtape" is one of my choice Futurama moments (right behind every scene with Zoidburg in it, and the entire "Roswell That Ends Well" Episode).
Official site
Rush on Last.fm
Wikipedia: Rush
Wikipedia: the Big Dirty Band

I got a frightening E-mail the other day, letting me know that Pandora would no longer be providing its service to Canadian interwebbers. I thought it was just a really bad joke, but it turns out it's true. This makes sadness. I'm sure there's some crazy garbage I could shove into one of my web browsers that would keep the site from detecting my location, but then I remembered that I have well over 25 gigabytes of music on my hard drive, and my CD count is coming around to about 200. So yeah. I'll miss the occasional new bands that I like (gotta thank Pandora for Gary Hoey and The Pink Spiders), but overall, I guess sticking iTunes on random play is more than good enough to fill the void.

I knew he'd mention them eventually, but I beat Matt to the Shrek Snickerses by one day! So check that out to see what someone who knows how to work a camera thinks of them.

All the old people on the internet have really been abuzz this week. Why? Apparently everyone in the world already knew that ActRaiser is an awesome game, and they're just delighted that it's shown up on the Virtual Console. Me? I tried the ROM once, died and gave up. Turns out I missed out on a wicked game.So I plunked down the 800 or whatever Wii Points it cost, and I've got to say it's my best purchase yet. Tecmo Bowl notwithstanding, in three days, it's already the Virtual Console game I've spent the most time with, and considering I've got Super Mario 64, StarFox 64, and A Link to The Past on there, that's really saying something. But yeah, ActRaiser is an Enix game, so of course it's awesome. I'm hoping for maybe some Wonder Project J in the future... or even better - a new Wonder Project specifically for Wii! But God forbid Square-Enix makes a sequel to a totally original game when they can keep inundating the industry with more and more Final Fantasy garbage (and occasional Dragon Quest goodness).