Gun it coming off of the line

You know what’s more impressive than my inability to stick with a game until I’ve beaten it? The fact that I’m engaged now! Ha. Yeah, so that happened. Actually, putting those two things side by side doesn’t sound so good. I don’t have a problem with commitment!

To set the record straight, it’s been a while now since I proposed, I just figured I should log it in here for posterity’s sake. Because, you know, the site isn’t much cared for now so obviously it’s going to be the next sliced bread once I die. All jokes aside, despite the September Incident, things between us have been just as good if not better than ever. Right now we’re in a place where we feel genuinely excited about our relationship, like back when we’d only been dating for a few months. Not that either of us were ever taking the relationship for granted or anything, we had just settled down and gotten used to how everything was.

Wedding preparations are going swimmingly! And I’ve been taking plenty of responsibility in making reservations and meeting with people and stuff! That’s exciting because I usually like to let someone else sort my affairs out for me, and I’m very proud of myself. I’m growing up! Finally! Though truth be told, I think my future mother-in-law is a little jealous, because (and I mean no ill by this) she really loves to be in control, and less-than-secretly wants to be in charge of planning and booking everything. I really do appreciate that, but I think it’s more important that I learn to do things like this on my own. Obviously I don’t want to do everything, but I like being able to come home and say that I’ve gotten that thing (whatever it my be at the time) all taken care of.

So now the big deal is getting us a house. Which is not going to be quite as big an expenditure as I originally thought, but still big enough that donations are more than welcome! You can just drop off a bundle of money at my house, thank you. Now I just need a way to justify paying for the webspace to keep my very expensive diary running…

Live the rebound

As you might have expected, I’ve been as busy as I can be with video games over the past few months, and honestly, I’ve been playing far more of them than I could have possibly kept up with when I was unemployed and single. So many have become one-week affairs, while others are destined to be played, dropped, and picked up again repeatedly, and others still I haven’t even booted up once. I’d kind of like to get things in order and start finishing a few of them, so I’m going to start a preliminary list of games I’ve been into lately that are fighting for my precious free time. And this list will cover only games that I’ve come in contact with for the first time over the last year. I have so many Gamecube and PS2 games I need to get around to playing, that this list would take forever if I counted all them too. Old stuff I’ll catch up on once the new stuff thins out.

Games I’m playing regularly

Despite all the games I’ve played once or twice and forgotten about, there are many that I continually find time to spend on. Pokémon White is the newest and most obvious example. I’ve been playing the shit out of this one over the month or so it’s been out, and I can’t get enough of it. Those little monsters always find a way to worm their way into my heart. Though admittedly, I would have been even happier with it had it excluded all of the old monsters in favor of the new ones. What are we at, 600 or something now? Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock has been spinning a lot inside of my Xbox, despite the fact that I’ve likely gotten all of the achievements that I can and I’m playing it just for fun instead of progress at this point. Which, actually, is kind of the point, but whatever. I’ve 100%-ed Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, but I still hold out hope that someday they will actually release the DLC we were originally promised to have in February. Being that it’s the only 3DS game I own, Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is getting plenty of play, but I think this will end up being a once-in-a-while game once I get the “beat arcade with all characters” medal. Dissidia: Final Fantasy is far more fun that it should be, but really, I want to forget about it and go get the sequel. Good thing new games aren’t in my budget.

Games I play sometimes

I’ve begun working my way through Brutal Legend, and while I love it to pieces, it’s getting less play than SSFIV3D, and how does that make sense? Picross 3D, which would have benefited greatly by being held back for 3DS, is not as fun as regular picross. But I’ve been picking away at the puzzles since it came out and am almost finished! I’m sitting at about 350 completed. Final Fantasy IV DS is brutally difficult, and is definitely not the breezy, nostalgic joyride I assumed it would be. But I’m soldiering through it anyway, getting stuck, slowly power-leveling my way though, and then dropping it for weeks at a time. Shadow Complex I could quit anytime, but I only need the Level 50 achievement and sadly, that’s essentially just a time-eating cheevo dressed up in a deceptively fancy hat. Secret of Mana seemed like a great idea for an iPhone game, and it could have been, but I just cannot bear the touch controls. And Donkey Kong Country Returns is such a great game, but it’s soooooo hard. And not great for two-player. I don’t imagine I’ll ever finish Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology even though I pick it up and log a decent number of hours each summer.

Games I played for a week and forgot about

I really wanted to play more of Fallout 3, but it’s so huge! I’ll never finish that monster. Not without power-gaming it for about a month straight, anyway. Final Fantasy XII is the same way, but I do pick that one up for a week or two every few months in a vain effort to make a little progress. I wanted to say my goal was to finish all the mark hunts, but I think I’ll have to settle for all Espers after reading about Yiazmat (he has more than 50 Million HPs).Arc Rise Fantasia is a different story. It’s a fairly fresh JRPG, with a not-entirely-cliche story and a battle system that is both fun and speedy, but the voice acting is so, so awful. It’s not so much that I don’t want to ever finish the game, but it’s enough that I would be okay if I didn’t. Alone in the Dark, the 2008 one, is another mixed bag. It’s got a lot of neat ideas, but gameplay is pretty much balls. It seems like 100%ing the cheevos would be easy if I could struggle my way to the end. Crackdown 2 was fun at first, and I like the in-game help for finding all those orbs, but near the end I gave up because it really just wasn’t as fun as the original, no matter how hard I tried to pretend it was. With Epic Mickey, I knew I was playing more for the atmosphere than the gameplay, but it (the gameplay) was just so mediocre that I’m having trouble pulling myself back in for the good stuff (presentation). Little King’s Story, on the other hand, has fairly good gameplay and presentation, but I can’t play it because I’m at the point where the enemies are actually dangerous, and I can’t bear to send my beloved villagers to their dooms. They all have names! And families! I’m not a monster! And speaking of which, I was completely obsessed with Monster Hunter Tri and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite last summer, but they have dropped completely off my radar, despite the fact that I really want to set aside some time for even one of them.

Games I own but haven’t stared

Why haven’t I played Dead Rising 2 yet? Honestly, it’s because I loved the original so much, I’m afraid the sequel won’t be as good. Loved Case Zero though. Deadly Premonition I got because despite the fact that he said it was awful, Steve’s description of the game (and its easy cheevos) made it sound like a game I wanted to play. So did the Gamespite Quarterly 6 review. The Incredible Hulk (360) will sit on my shelf and collect dust forever. It was better off in the Wal-Mart bargain bin. Technically I’ve beaten New Play Control! Pikmin like a dozen times, but I suppose I should play it at least once to justify the $30 expense. And if you want to pick, I have played the first two levels of Dawn of Mana, but that was so long ago I can’t even remember the experience. Eternal Sonata I hear is not so great, but how can I resist a JRPG that co-stars Frédéric Chopin? By leaving it on the shelf next to The Incredible Hulk, I suppose.

Oh good gravy. And these are just the games that spring to mind. Even if I don’t write an article at all this year, I hope to make use of this webspace to help keep track of how I’m progressing through my backlog of games. I didn’t even consider WiiWare/virtual console games. Or PC games. Or Shantae: Risky’s Revenge! That one really deserves to be finished. Ugh. I’ll have to come up with some sort of system to keep track of what I’m playing and what I need to accomplish in each game. I tried using The Backloggery some time ago, but… I don’t know why I stopped updating it. Maybe because I play too many damn games. Oops.

Now I’m fine

Huh, it turns out that I almost get more hits when I don’t post. Take a look at this graph of site traffic over the last four months.

Crazy stuff, there. Anyway, back to the task at hand. Remember last June, when I posted links to a handful of my favourite articles on the site? No? Refresh your memory then. I had planned on making a second list of favorites, but it never really panned out. Like most of the things I try to do. But here I am, almost a year later, come to finally post the rest of my choices. Of course, I’d long since lost the list I had selected, but I think these ones are particularly memorable, even if I’m the only one who does.

Cap’n Crunch’s Choco Donuts – Present me loves the Cap’n cereals more than anything, but for some reason back in the day I guess I was inferring that he was a pedophile? Regardless, this was the first article that a lot of my friends complimented me on, so it sticks out pretty prominently in my memory.

Top 12 Reasons MegaMan Rules – My goodness, was I really this bad? I realize now that basically every word I typed here makes me look like a retarded fanboy now, but I suppose at that point I was. Oh well. I remember working really hard on this one, especially on the (now obviously) shitty, shitty banners.

The Squirrel Game – Board game fan fiction. For most people that’s enough reason to leave the site entirely, but I refute that that’s exactly why you should read this article. If only to get a good grasp on why I spend most of my writing time blogging and reviewing as opposed to creative fiction.

The Cup – It’s not about bras, or their contents, sadly. It is about a drinking cup, which is adorable. And speaking of adorable, look at 18-year-old me! He’s pretty hot! And young. Oh, how I wish I could be so young and carefree again…

Hachiemon – I really don’t know how to explain this one. There’s a huge language and cultural gap separating me and the understanding of this game. But I like the article! It kind of makes me want to go back and actually play Hachiemon. At least for a couple levels.

I Hate Socks – Sho ’nuff.

The Ramen Fiasco – It’s hardly a fiasco, but I have a soft spot for any articles I’d written about food. This one is short, but I think it chronicles my cooking prowess pretty well. On an interesting side note, said cooking skills have not developed at all in the 5 years since I wrote this!

It’s been such a long time

*ACHOO*

Augh, this place is absolutely covered in dust! I know I kind of abandoned it, but the maid’s been on payroll all this time. Did she think I wouldn’t pop in every now and again to see if it’s keeping up? Oh, she is so getting fired!

Poor housekeeping aside, I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I’ve been getting all nostalgic about how I used to love this site back in the day, and I’ve been considering coming back to it, if only for myself. Well of course it would be for myself. I mean, why would anyone still be checking for updates? I miss writing. I miss being creative. I miss having an outlet to bitch about all the things I dislike without anyone to make me feel bad about my opinions. Maybe I should blog again.

I also have a lot (well, a couple hours a week) more free time on my hands these days, and once I’ve caught up on my video game backlog (which has grown to an epic size) there will be nothing to do but blog. And play old games again. Because I have no more money for games. But that’s another story.

Anyway, yeah, I think I’m gonna come back to blogging. I just hate not having a written record of what’s going on in my life and my mind, and diaries are for little girls. So blog I shall!

Feeling a little better

So, I’m not really feeling like getting back into this, but at least while the site is still live, I don’t want that kind of negativity festering on it, so I’ve removed my grim post of grimness. Here’s a replacement paragraph.

It’s sad that I took so long to remove it too, because the dark times didn’t last for long; three days, more or less. I guess sometimes people just gotta get their shit together, and it’s just too bad that sometimes it involves hurting the people closest to you. Anyway, happier news!

There’s this Mario Bros. level creator see, and over at Talking Time, they’re making a whole game with it. Interested in the project, I downloaded the editor just to play around, and quickly found myself deeply entrenched in it because let’s face it, making your own levels for a game you grew up with is a pretty great power trip.

I decided that I’d make my very own Super Mario Bros. game, and while “development” was going smoothly and I was very proud of my work, I quickly came to the realization that all my hard work would never be appreciated by anyone but myself. And while self-satisfaction is great and all, I wanted at least someone to critique a little of my work, so I submitted a stage to the Super TT Bros thread, and not only was it accepted into the game, but was given fairly high praise! So yay me. If you want to see what I made (and it’s really not that great), download the SMBX program and then put this level in the Worlds folder somewhere. It’s most easily accessed by booting it up in the editor and choosing “test level.”

So yeah. I’m very happy about this. Maybe Super TT Bros. will only ever be played by a few dozen forum patrons, but dammit, I made a contribution to a real goddamn game. Fan-game maybe, but a game no less. I can now die happy. How many times have I typed that over the lifespan of this site?

Everything’s gonna be alright

The saddest part is that this is the second time. I knew it was inevitable, and that all 360s succumb to the RROD at some point in their lifetime, but I hadn’t realized that having it repaired would only last so long. Maybe it was just me being naive, but I really, truly believed that once it came back from Microsoft’s Xbox Resuscitation Centre it would live on until it literally fell apart.

But nope. Hardware’s failed again, and this time it’s gonna cost me to get it repaired. So I was thinking about just waiting out my lack of Xbox until I can scrounge up enough pocket change to pick up one of those “more reliable” Slim models. I was needing a hard drive upgrade anyway, so I figure I might as well bite the bullet. If the one I have is just going to keep suiciding forever, why not spare myself the agony and pony up for a new one?

I just really don’t have $300 to fritter away on a game console I already own. Only now do I realize why I shouldn’t have bought each new iteration of the DS (excepting the XL of course, even I’m not that bad with money). It’s not like ol’ Phatty there is going to kick the bucket anytime soon.

Parallel Lines : Guitar Hero + MegaMan Battle Network

Quite often in the world of television games, there are set standards that will always ring true. Licensed games (based on movies, TV shows, toy lines, etc) will almost always be unplayably bad. Japanese RPGs will require hours and hours of level grinding. Madden 20XX will sell like hotcakes. Japanese and western developers will have exactly the opposite ideas of how games should be. And that last one is the important one here, because recently I’ve noticed that two completely different game series have evolved in almost the exact same pattern, and not only is one American-born and the other of Japanese heritage, but they’re of nearly opposite genres as well and come almost exclusively on different platforms.

Our first series is the “illustrious” MegaMan Battle Network. A stiflingly brilliant mash up of action and RPG, the Battle Network series was the first standout RPG series on the GameBoy Advance. It reinvented MegaMan and his world, and even cut him down to co-star, forced to share the spotlight with a rather vanilla human hero. Then we have Guitar Hero, which blew up the music game genre, and made the world embrace the art of playing a pretend guitar. Both series have come a long way, and coincidentally have shared many of the same steps along their separate paths.

MegaMan Battle Network took the idea of making MegaMan into a portable-friendly RPG, and then twisted it to make it feel like the action games that the plucky blue robot was known for. The world was re-imagined as a place where anything and everything was connected to the internet and the titular hero was but a program that answered to the back and call of the other main character, Lan Hikari. While Lan would run about around the world talking to ridiculous caricatures and completing tedious fetch quests, MegaMan’s portions were puzzle solving and virus busting. The gameplay made great use of MegaMan’s penchant for acquiring a wide array of secondary weapons, which were represented by battle chips that you could carry 20 of with you at any time. These were weapons that came in a nearly infinite variety, from shotguns to gigantic wooden spikes to flamethrowers to time bombs. They made the Mega Buster look absolutely useless in comparison, and gave the game a great deal of depth. You could battle in as many ways as you could come up with. Maybe you only wanted to use sword weapons. Maybe you’d rely mostly on using Navi chips, which summoned powerful allies to deal huge damage. Maybe you’d build a chip deck that took advantage of a special element. It was absolutely the most original MegaMan game made in years, despite the fact that there were a lot of recycled ideas from the MegaMan “continuity.”

Guitar Hero, on the other hand, was one of the PS2’s last breakout hits, and more than likely it’s best selling specialty controller game. The music genre was more or less just DDR in North America at that point, with very few music games escaping Japan, and even fewer that you’d actually hear about. But Guitar Hero was a game tailor-made for American gamers and music lovers. It took our most beloved instrument, turned it into a plastic toy, and made it so much more accessible than the real deal. The game featured 30 songs that ranged from legendary rockers to upstart Gen-Y groups, and then 17 more by bands that you’d never heard of. They were all covers, and 30 doesn’t really seem like a lot these days (the latest ones are pushing 100 on-disc tracks), but God damn the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll was alive here. You had songs by Queen, Boston, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Jimi Hendrix and the Ramones. It was challenging to learn too, but ultimately extremely satisfying to finally pull off incredible feats like a five-star performance on “Cowboys From Hell.” Guitar Hero was definitely a sleeper hit, as finding a copy of the game and guitar set within the first few months of the game’s release was like trying to find a Sasquatch; maybe you thought you saw one once, but really it was just a display box set there to fake you out.

Both games were exceptional, standout titles that represented their respective genres wonderfully. Battle Network gave people something truly entertaining to play on their GBAs besides the Mario Bros. pack-in that came with Super Mario Advance. Guitar Hero showed people that playing games for the fun of rocking out and getting high scores was just as (if not way more) fun as mindlessly running people over all day in GTA: Whatever City. And both games had their faults too. MMBN was a Japanese RPG, meaning that it would be chock full of tedious running around, and its plot was sufficiently goofy. Worming your way around the it-all-looks-the-same internet was annoying and most of the puzzles were either stupid or totally opaque. Guitar Hero couldn’t be played on a HDTV because it features no lag calibration, and even that tiny bit of lag can totally ruin the flow of a game built around the precision of the player’s input. Said input was a little unrefined too, with hammer-ons and pull-offs (HOPOs) being very difficult to execute reliably, and a rather lackluster multiplayer option. Also, Franz Ferdinand. Blech.

Capcom (who develop the MegaMan games, for those out of the loop) has a well known tradition of always making the second game in each series the absolute pinnacle. This was no different with MegaMan Battle Network 2. It was essentially the same game, but beefed up to be so much more awesome. New character customization options, nearly twice as many battle chips, a slightly less stupid plot, and even cooler boss enemies. Little did I know that Guitar Hero 2 would follow this exact same trend; bigger (and somehow even better) setlist, more unlockables, improved HOPOs, and a practice mode. Both games even got a multiplayer upgrade; GH2 now lets players play the entire song in face-off and includes a co-operative mode, while MMBN2 got a two-player net battle mode added onto the original’s somewhat pitiful trading-only multiplayer option. It should be known that the second installment in both series remains my favourite.

The third Battle Network game was equally as good as the second, much like in the original MegaMan series, but something was off. There were more chips and bosses and post-game content than ever, but the magic was starting to fade. It was starting to get the feeling of the same thing over and over again. It felt like Capcom was just going through the motions. And maybe there was even too much. The Navi customizer easily gave you the ability to tweak your playing style even more, but it also introduced a whole new set of baubles to roam around searching for. It even pushed the multiplayer envelope even farther by releasing two slightly different versions of the game, each with a few exclusive elements that made you get together with a friend to trade for.

Guitar Hero 3 upped the multiplayer ante too, but in a much more legitimate way, by including the option of online play. It was easily the best feature of the game, as the series had shifted developers, and its new handlers, Neversoft (the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater guys) tried way too hard to take Guitar Hero and make it more extreme. They put in cutscenes and changed the HUD and spoiled the selection of unlockable tracks and gave Judy Nails a very unmistakable boob job. Also they cut Pandora, my favourite character. The main set list was still of a fairly solid selection, but the rest of the package was getting to be too much. The obnoxious and loud presentation wasn’t anywhere near as lovable as the notebook-and-doodles aesthetic of the previous entries in the series. Neversoft was taking Guitar Hero way too seriously, and while the core experience -playing great rock tunes with a plastic guitar- was as good as ever, it was starting to smell of the same been-there-done-that odor that had settled upon Battle Network 3. And it was way too hard, to boot. “Raining Blood” makes this game sooooo much less fun.

In both cases, where the fourth game in the series is concerned, the less said, the better. At this point in both series lifespans, the developers had openly admitted to wanting to milk their respective series for as much cash as they could while the games were at the peaks of their popularity. Battle Network 4 was a disaster. Not only was the main plot device a lame battle tournament, but you had to complete the asinine story three times to get everything. Each time you would play on the next difficulty, and unlock a new rank of chips and gear each time. It was awful, and I don’t believe I cared enough to make it through my second run, even though I’d stuck with both BN2 and 3 all the way to 100% completions. You don’t even get to see all the boss enemies until you’ve played through all three time. But that’s not so awful as it could be, because the bosses were starting to seem less like souped-up versions of classic MegaMan enemies, and more like big goofballs. The only nice thing I have to say is that at least here they gave the two versions very distinct differences, with a completely different set of bosses and transformations for MegaMan. It would have made playing both versions worthwhile if the game hadn’t been completely broken. And speaking of broken, I’m not even going to get into that whole Dark Chip mess.

Guitar Hero: World Tour was also a horrible abortion of a game, and hopefully remain the black sheep of the family forever. I dread the idea of a worse Guitar Hero game. Oh, no wait, that was Band Hero. But that’s not the point. World Tour was Neversoft’s attempt at competing with the stellar Rock Band. Adding vocals and drums wouldn’t have been so bad, but that was the point where the directors said that people weren’t crazy enough about Guitar Hero and figured they should branch out with the kinds of music they’d put in the game. What resulted was a overall tepid and unexciting set list that left me wishing I hadn’t wasted $60 bucks on it. Seriously, there are like six good songs in the game. And I know the selection was less than perfect in GH3, but cutting out the unlockable songs altogether? Criminals! Unlocking those tracks (as arbitrary a content block as it might have been) was always special, and that feeling was completely void in this game. The upside is that I kind of like the slider parts, as it makes sequences that I’m nowhere near good enough to play possible. And what’s the deal with making me play a whole set at a time? I never liked that part of Rock Band and I surely don’t like it here. I like to have the option, but I don’t want it forced on me.

Both Battle Network 5 and Guitar Hero 5 seemed to bring redemption to their respective franchises, at least that’s what all the pre-release media led us to believe. To say they restored their families’ good names would be a bit much, but they were certainly a step back in the right direction. Guitar Hero 5 accomplished this mainly by making a much better set list. Not only does it contain “Under Pressure” (goes up a whole letter grade for that alone), but it has two Tom Petty songs and Megadeth is back! Plus Rush! How could I be mad at a game that includes Rush? The ability to play with any combination of instruments is a monumental improvement too. The guy who gets stuck on drums is always disappointed, and eight times out of ten, people will choose not to play over having to sing, so allowing everyone to play guitar together makes the game so much more party-friendly. Speaking of which, there’s all those party modes in there too, but as someone who mostly plays solo, I really haven’t tried any of them, and I doubt they would enhance my multiplayer experience (I prefer to play co-op). And switching up the gameplay by using challenges to unlock extra content is nice, but it also kind of sucks for those of us that don’t own a drum kit and are exempt from certain challenges. It’s still saddled with some truly awful tunes (Coldplay again? Fuck guys, learn! Coldplay sucks!), and it doesn’t quite have that true Guitar Hero feel yet, but I’m much less ashamed to own this than World Tour.

Battle Network 5 on the other hand, changes things up by *SHOCK!* changing the gameplay itself. 80% of the game is still traditional Battle Network fare, alternating between running around as Lan and blasting viruses as MegaMan, but then there’s a new twist. Not only can MegaMan assume the style and powers of his ally NetNavis, but you can actually play as them in certain parts of the game! Also, there’s a cool new strategy-style game mode that shakes things up a bit. It’s a little jarring to have something so different in a game franchise that prides itself on being the same thing over and over again with minimal changes, but it’s actually a pretty sweet sub-game. It actually requires quite a bit of planning and strategy, and the later instances can get incredibly hard, though it never feels like an unfair fight. They also dropped the lame “play it three times!” schtick, which in itself is a major improvement. The overarching plot is actually kind of good too, even if it has the usual MegaMan stupidness and plot holes mixed in. The ally characters aren’t really the coolest ones they could have chosen, but it’s nice to see some fresh faces in Mega’s place. And this one takes the version split even farther, developing two parallel but very different stories.

Battle Network 6 scaled itself back down a bit in terms of ambition and diversity, but it was the closest the series has come to trumping BN2. The version split isn’t quite as huge as in the last two games, but each still contains a unique set of ally characters. And MegaMan’s transformation powers have been tweaked to be so much greater than ever, giving him his allies’ forms without time limits, a super-powerful standard Beast transformation, and nearly unstoppable Beast versions of each of the other forms. While BN6 drops the strategy sub-game, it allows you to play as the ally characters much more freely and all but removes the horrible, game-breaking Dark Chips. The story ends here, officially putting the series to bed, and I honestly was happy that it ended on such a good note. Had Battle Network 4 been the last one, it would have left a bad taste in my mouth that might have fouled my love for the older games in the series. But things got much better from there on in, and while 4 is best avoided and 5 is skippable, Battle Network 6 is definitely a chapter in the series that fans will enjoy. I know I was very pleased that I enjoyed the game to stick with it long enough to almost hit %100 completion again. I let a few of the higher-class chips go, but I essentially saw all that the game had to offer, and that’s way more than I got from 4 and 5.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is still about a month away from release, but eveyrthing that has been said about it to this point shows that Neversoft is finally going back to what made Guitar Hero so great in the first place. The track list is looking to be about 90% metal and rock ‘n’ roll, with the other 10% made up of punk and alternative music. This is great. They finally understand that we play Guitar Hero because we love guitar songs, not just to play popular music. Rush is basically the face band for the game, and if I was ecstatic that GH5 had one Rush song in it, imagine how I felt when Neversoft announced that the entire “2112” suite will be in Warriors of Rock. The fact that Dave Mustaine and Gene Simmons are both involved in the game also boosts its rock credibility quite a bit. Say what you want about how refined Rock Band is getting, but it most certainly lacks the star power that Guitar Hero boasts. I like that the “quest mode” is focused on completing challenges again, but I hope this time they level the playing field for the rest of us and allow all content to be unlocked by one person on guitar. I don’t want to be exempt from parts of my game because I don’t know three other people who play at Expert level. Still, it looks like it’s going to be a fantastic game, and I have a good feeling that it’s going to bring back that love I felt for the Guitar Hero franchise way back in GH2.

While the MegaMan Battle Network series is technically dead (the MegaMan Star Force games were flashy sequels masquerading as a new series), Guitar Hero lives on, but is going to be developed by a new team after Warriors of Rock, so who knows what’s in store for it. But if you look at the parallels between the two, we can see that the next Guitar Hero will parade around under a flimsy mask pretending it’s a new series, when it’s really just a sequel with fancier graphics and less interesting gameplay. After that it will spawn two sequels and then Activision will finally realize than nobody really cares about it anymore and then remake the first game with some extra content culled from the “new series” but nobody will care because they’re content to play GH2 and Warriors of Rock until the end of time. It’s a bold prediction, but look at the signs, man!

Ooh baby, I’m a fool for you

So! Hard drive enclosure get! Also it was fairly cheap. I was expecting $70-$100, got it for $45. Which is still more than I’d like to pay for a glorified cable into my computer, but whatever. The new compy is now set up to feed on the delicious informations held within the old hard drive, so I’ve got access to all my old crap.

That said, I think that in keeping with the spirit of moving old stuff to a new system, I should really get on with moving all the old website stuff over from Angelfire. I beleive I said I was going to start doing that some months ago, and kind of forgot. Or got overwhelmed. There’s a lot more to go than I’d expected, so it’s going to be quite a task, but it needs to get done. And just moving the stuff over isn’t so bad, but updating the layouts and making sure all the links are live is a huge pain. Makes me wish I was coding this site in something more efficient than bare-bones HTML. Oh well!

Yeah, that’s about all. I moved a couple articles over tonight. Not enough that I’m ready to make that second “Ryan’s Favourite Articles” post though. That’ll be next week maybe?

Money’s not an issue

So I got me a new compy, and it’s quite slick. Not a a top-of-the-line model, mind you, but more than good enough to suit my needs. Those needs being running a crap-ass blog and playing Borderlands. Also Portal sometimes, but mostly Borderlands.

The (very temporary) downside to all this is that not everything is quite in place yet and I currently do not have access to my old hard drive. This means it’s gonna be about a week or so until I’m back at peak efficiency. Of course peak efficiency isn’t much more than what I’ve got going now, it basically just means I have my entire music library to listen to whilst I blog, as opposed to the… (let me see here)… three CDs I’ve bothered to rip again.

In any case, here’s a picture of the new beast. Though really, it’s less than half the size of the last machine, so “beast” probably isn’t the right word. Also it’s a jillion times quieter too, so I can leave it on and stuff downloading overnight. Uh, nothing that I’m not supposed to be downloading, of course.

Look at all that space! I actually have a desk now! Also I can move my mouse! Hooray!

But cheering aside, I was going to go to work on moving more old articles over from the Angelfire mess, but then realized I no longer had access to the files! Silly me. Oh well, I’ll be uploading flashy new versions of stuff in less than a week’s time, so stay tuned. Also, that Dove deodorant is totally not mine. I use the manly stuff. For men.

That kind of love

Here’s a shocker: I’ve updated the long-neglected CD archive section of the site. Yeah, thought I’d given up on it, didn’t you? I’ll admit it was (and still is) a monumental task, but I’m feeling like it’s time to git ‘r done!

Ahem.

You can go here to find out more. Gold letters are ones that are recently updated. Yes there is only one currently; it’s been a long, slow process, and I don’t plan to increase speed too much. I do hope to have at least all currently available letter updated and three more done by the end of the year though. Remind me about that in November too please, cause I’m damn sure gonna forget.

So yeah. Mostly I just didn’t want that condom dispenser label to be the first thing people saw anymore. And that kinda failed because this post wasn’t nearly meaty enough. Oh, irony!