Starting small

I mentioned at some point before my world got blasted to heck that I wanted to read more. Indeed, I have not been doing so. Mostly for lack of motivation, but also because my Kobo’s screen has been cracking apart more and more even though I’ve barely touched the damn thing in months. It’s very distracting.

Anyway, I bought a new Story Bundle and figured that I ought to at least start paging through a few books from previous bundles that I’ve purchased and subsequently ignored. My first choice was The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals.

kosherguide

While they are not strictly “imaginary” I’ve always been fascinated by cryptids. I own more than a couple paperback bestiaries of unseen animals, and of course I was interested in checking out another. I didn’t really expect that the title was exactly what the book is about: whether certain fantastical species would be okay for Jewish peoples to eat or not.

Yeah. See, I don’t really have “taste” in literature.

Anyway, it was a fairly good read. Very short, and not nearly comprehensive enough, but entertaining. Each beast is given a short (and often goofy) description and then there’s a little banter between the authors on why it’s kosher or not. It’s not hilarious by any stretch, but I chuckled a few times. It’s certainly not meant to be informative, either. There are a couple of monsters I’ve never heard of included in here, but the amount of background for any of them is very slim.

Of course, the point of the book is not to give you a detailed bio and history of each cryptid, but simply to let you know if you can be Jewish and eat them. Even on that note, it’s not entirely fulfilling, as more than a few verdicts are left with a question mark.

Anyhow, it’s not a bad book, and it’s not like it’ll even take you long to get through it if you’re not enjoying it. Pop over to the website and consider picking up a copy. I liked it, but I can’t guarantee that anyone who is not me would.

Oh hey, and it’s given me a blog post to file under “cryptozoology.” So that’s cool.

What even is a moo-vee?

Hey so I used the “film” tag for the first time in forever on that previous post. Yes, sir, I sure haven’t written about anything but video games in way too long. Chalk it up partly to me not having much interest in writing much of anything for the last few months. I just haven’t had the motivation to do much lately.

As far as movies go, I’ve watched a grand total of two films since D-Day 2015. One of those was my umpteen-hundredth viewing of The Goonies. Because I can always enjoy The Goonies.

The second movie that I watched, I came across while idly poking around on Netflix. It’s called The Notebook, and it’s the exact opposite of The Notebook that you’re thinking of. You may recall that I read and thoroughly enjoyed the book that this movie is based on, and I was downright thrilled to see that it has been made into a film. I’ve been toying with the idea of re-reading the whole trilogy, and watching the movie version of the first part has only made me want to read it again even more.

notebookposterSee, the thing is that the movie version is… I don’t know, kind of dull? While it’s very true to the book and the acting is really great, it just seemed sort of insubstantial. One of those movies where it felt like nothing was ever happening, even though things were, in fact, happening. It could of course just be that it’s not the kind of movie that I’d normally watch. As a drama, I typically would have stayed far away from it. Especially since it’s about kids dealing with a troubled life during World War II. Maybe I just don’t know how to value movies that aren’t full of one-liners and superheroes.

I don’t know if I can truly even recommend it. If you’re read the book, you’ve gotten the significantly better experience already. If you haven’t read the book, you’ll probably just be puzzled and bored. I mean, if you’re into indie dramas you’ll probably get more out of it than the average person, but it still seems like a tough sell to me. I can’t remember for the life of me if there’s even one character with a proper given name.

Anyhow, I did enjoy it on some level. Maybe just for filling in some little gaps that my imagination left blank while I was reading the book. I like the story and the characters, and I guess it’s nice to actually see them doing their things. Mostly though, I’m kind of hoping that the next two books, The Proof and The Third Lie, get made into movies as well, as that’s when the plot really gets going. Anyway, I probably just ought to go read them all again. I recommend you do so as well. Fantastic books.

Forever Rumblin’

A couple months ago, Nintendo rolled out their first freemium Pokémon game for 3DS, Pokémon Shuffle. I’m told that it’s the average mobile F2P match-em-up, but with Squirtles and Lucarios instead of candy beans or whatever. I played the crap out of it, in fact I continue to play a little bit each day, and I still haven’t spent a single cent on it. It helps that it is fairly regularly updated with new content and competitions.

Last week, the second free-to-play Pokémon spinoff came out: Pokémon Rumble World. Like the previous games in the Rumble series, it’s a fairly shallow action game that has you punch your way through scores of toy Pokémon and hoping to maybe take some home with you at the end of each stage. It’s good, simple fun, and World is the best incarnation of it yet.

pkmnrw

For starters, it’s not the “keep giving us money and we’ll let you play more than five rounds a day” kind of F2P model. No, it’s more like you get the game for free, and then you can give up some bucks to unlock more content within it. And that content is all either permanent upgrades or new stages, too. Also, there’s a hard limit on how much money you can spend on the game (about $35), so it’s more like you’re buying a full game bit-by-bit instead of paying it all up front.

This is a pretty great model. Especially since the premium currency (pokédiamonds) are easy enough to come by for free in-game. There are daily challenges that reward skilled players with pretty decent payouts of pokédiamonds, streetpass milestones that award bunches of pokédiamonds, and if you streetpass people or have 3DS friends that are playing the game, their Miis can pop in and sometimes give you a diamond.

So there are two way you can play: take it slow and unlock everything for free, or pony up and have all of the game’s content delivered to you as soon as possible. Not too shabby. If you hit the spending limit, the game even gives you 20 free pokédiamonds every day to fritter away on the usual silly freemium things, like reviving if you’re defeated in a stage, or being able to play a stage again without waiting for the time limit to expire.

The only thing I really don’t like about Rumble World is that adding a specific monster to your stable requires a massive amount of luck. For one, simply getting a defeated Pokémon to join you is random, nothing you can really do about it. Not every Pokémon assigned to a stage appears every time you play that stage, which complicates things further. Worst of all, each world is divided into several areas, each with a pre-set Pokémon loadout, and you get to play one stage per visit to a world, and even then it’s picked randomly.

Certain Pokémon seem to only appear in the “FEVER!” version of each stage, which, as far as I can tell, comes about totally randomly. Like everything else. Needless to say, there are a lot of RNGs working against you if you’re trying to catch ’em all. It’s very much a “hope for the best” kind of situation.

On the upside, it’s still pretty fun to just carve your way through the stages, bopping Pokémon left and right. The way that the game mechanics and pokémon moves and strength levels work, it gives you lots of opportunities to play as monsters that otherwise amount to useless data. For example, I’ve been playing as a really strong Durant lately, and Durant is a Pokémon that has gotten exactly zero respect from me previous to this game. I use it because it’s quick, strong, and has a really efficient Bite attack. Contrast with Golbat, a Pokémon I normally love, but whose Acrobatics attack is really unwieldy in Rumble World, making it difficult to use effectively.

Certainly, Pokémon Rumble World is not a deep game, but it’s a decent way to kill some time now and then. And who doesn’t love the adorable little toy versions of Pokémon? So yeah, I’d recommend it. Besides, it’s free. What do you have to lose?

Retrospective: Mega Man Battle Network 4

You know how every once in a while I talk about how something in my environment triggers a loosely-related memory? I had a really strong one of those yesterday. I was listening to Firehouse at work, and for whatever reason, it brought up memories of Mega Man Battle Network 4.

If you’ve actually paid attention to my ramblings over the last however many years, you know that Battle Network 4 and I have a rocky relationship. In fact, I might even say that I hate it. It is, by a wide margin, the worst in its series. And that’s mostly because it’s overdesigned and padded all to heck. However, when we started out, MMBN4 and I got along fairly well.

mmbn4covers

The Mega Man Battle Network series was an annual release for the first six years of the Game Boy Advance’s lifespan. I got in on the second installment (which many rightly consider to be the best), and lured the eldest of my brothers into its grips before long. From that point on, we would eagerly await the release of the newest entry each year and spend the summer playing through together.

Continue reading Retrospective: Mega Man Battle Network 4

Want some free music?

As an incentive to have consumers buy Super Smash Bros 4 on 3DS and Wii U, Nintendo put two promotions in place for anyone who registered both versions on Club Nintendo. The first one was the giveaway of the very first piece of DLC for the game: Mewtwo. The character costs $5 to buy for both versions of the game (or $4 if you only want him on one or the other), but people who cashed in on the promotion get him for free, and a couple of weeks early, to boot.

The second promotion was a special CD set that features 72 tracks from the games’ soundtracks. This is the more elusive one, as Nintendo hasn’t announced any plans to actually sell this CD set to anyone who didn’t qualify for the free giveaway.

As such, I’ve uploaded the entirety of both discs for you to download at your leisure. They’re lazily tagged, but they’re good to go. It’s really excellent stuff if you’re at all into video game music.

Super Smash Bros – RED

Super Smash Bros – BLUE

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – March 2015

Yeesh, it’s April already. Funny to think that as of today, I’ll have been a homeowner for exactly three years.

Fooled you! It’s actually May 1st that I took possession of my house.

That… that was terrible. Let’s just get onto the video game stuff.

~ Now Playing ~

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) – As much as I love Smash Bros, I have to say that if I were restricted to one single game for the rest of my days, it’d be a MonHun game. Preferably this one.

Majora’s Mask 3D (3DS) – If I had to choose only one Zelda to play forever? It’d be Wind Waker, but Majora is a very close second.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – March 2015

New [3DS] hotness

Were you just aching to have me type more words about the New 3DS? Then you’re in luck!

If you weren’t… Well, I’m sorry. It’s just not your day.

Firstly, I just want to say how much I love the fancy Monster Hunter 4 edition that I was able to snag. The silvery colour is perfect, and I honestly think it wouldn’t look as nice without the fur pattern. The focal point, the monster emblem, is also really cool. I think it’s a pretty nice cover design all around, since it manages to be flashy and simple at the same time.

I’ll admit, I’m a little puzzled why the emblem is of Najarala, of all monsters. But I won’t complain since it still looks neat.

To speak about the system in general, it’s got a ton of little improvements here and there, most of which I never imagined that I’d appreciate so much. The one downgrade to the system is that it only fits a MicroSD card now, so that was an extra expense for me. Also the SD slot is on the back of the system, hidden underneath the outer shell. You have to have a teeny-tiny screwdriver to access it, which is inconvenient if you’ve been using multiple SD cards for some reason. I only had to open it once, and I don’t anticipate ever having to do it again.

The button layout has changed yet again, relocating the start and select buttons to the side of the system, instead of below the touchscreen. Now it’s set up more like the DSi. This is a great change, because I always felt that it was weird to reach over to push those buttons. Also they’ve added ZL and ZR buttons, which I (and probably most people) have no use for at this point. I guess some game might eventually come along that needs four shoulder buttons, but I haven’t met one yet.

The big addition as far as control options go is the C-stick. Though it’s more like a C-nub. It’s about the size of a pencil eraser, and feels pretty similar. It’s really odd at first because it doesn’t really move at all, but it’s perfectly receptive to how you’re pushing on it. I didn’t give a flip about it at first, but I’ve really come to love it. It makes playing Monster Hunter 4 a lot more convenient, and it’s nice to have free camera control in Majora’s Mask 3D as well.

New 3DS has a few more horses under its hood than its cousins, though that added power won’t be noticeable at all until early April, when Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is released. It’s currently the only game on the horizon that requires New 3DS’ extra power, though it’s still visually inferior to the Wii version. Rumours abound that MH4 looks a little better on New 3DS, but I haven’t really dug deep enough to see if there’s any hard evidence to support that. Final verdict: at the moment, the New 3DS’ power-up is insignificant. We’ll have to see how many desirable exclusives end up existing.

What makes the New 3DS truly amazing is the super-stable 3D technology. On the old 3DS, I almost never played with the 3D effect turned on, because it had a very narrow viewing angle, and shifting even a bit would break the illusion. It just didn’t look very good, so I didn’t make use of it. New 3DS has some sort of spooky face-tracking camera (it’s watching you) built in that keeps track of where your eyes are in relation to the screen and adjusts the 3D accordingly, keeping the effect solid even if you’re moving around a bit.

Super-stable 3D works really well. I spend about half of my time with Monster Hunter 4 in 3D, and to this point, I haven’t played Majora’s Mask in 2D at all. Since it’s built into the hardware, it works just fine with older games too, so games like Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse and Kirby Triple Deluxe can be played in their full 3D glory without having to worry about the effect constantly mucking up.

Keep in mind of course, it’s built for normal usage. If you’re wobbling around like a madman and/or trying to break the illusion, it’s still going to break. It’s not perfect, but it’s more than good enough to make playing with 3D on a real joy.

I guess there are maybe some other things about the New 3DS to mention. The stylus is different. Fatter and shorter. People seem to hate it, but I don’t much care. I don’t like that it’s tucked into the bottom edge of the system. It’s much harder to slide out from there than it was when it was on the side or top. Also, in North America, the New 3DS only comes in the XL variety. Again, I don’t care. I was rocking a 3DS XL anyway, so it’s NBD to me.

In conclusion, I’d have to say that while the New 3DS is a worthy upgrade, it’s not a totally necessary one. But then again, when has an incremental hardware revision ever been necessary? Never, that’s when. But New 3DS has been great for me, and if you’re in the market for a 3DS, there’s really no reason not to go with the fancy New one. If you already own a 3DS and don’t care about the 3D effect or Xenoblade, I can’t really recommend it. Still, it’s a nice machine, and it’s only further solidifying the 3DS as my preferred gaming system.

It’s new, alright

Hey so it’s been weeks now but check it out, I bought myself a New Nintendo 3DS. Note that it’s New and not just new. I mean, yes, it’s both, but it’s the New that matters. The New is what makes it different than simply being new.

This thing has a terrible name.

mh3ds

Anyway, I’d like to recount the story of how I came into possession of this little gadget first, if that’s alright. I mean, we all know that I’m very likely going to buy new Nintendo hardware. It’s part of what makes me the person that I am; mindless consumerism.

When the New 3DS was first announced for Japan, I didn’t give a spit. Oh okay, sure there’s more stable 3D visuals and a weird little C-nub and it’s got a few more horses under the hood. But really, it didn’t seem like it was important for anything but playing a portable version of Xenoblade Chronicles. Which is a decent reason to own the thing, mind you, but it still didn’t “Wow!” me.

And yet despite this, I started putting a little money away here and there because I knew that I was going to end up buying one anyway.

Months later, it’s officially announced to be releasing in North America, and there was a sweet, sweet Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate-themed version, exclusive to EB Games/GameStop. I figured that special edition 3DSes have always been pretty plentiful, and almost nobody in North America gives a toot about Monster Hunter, so I’ll skip the pre-ordering and just pick one up on release day. WHOOPS. Pre-orders were sold out by the end of the same day, and local EB Games staff were fairly certain that they weren’t going to get any extra units for walk-in customers.

So I booked release day off and got to the mall with the littlest bro before the EB opened. We sat down near the store, not anticipating a crowd. But then a couple other young people stared sitting at adjacent tables and a young woman planted right in front of the door. Another fellow got up and stood behind her, and we quickly followed suit. Not a minute later, a rather large line had queued up behind us.

A single employee opened the store, and we shuffled in to be helped one-by-one. The lady got her stuff, and the guy in front of me (let’s call him Paul) went up to bat. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was happening, but Paul had a bunch of stuff pre-ordered, though he decided against actually purchasing all of it.

I got up and asked if the store had gotten any extra Monster Hunter 3DSes. The guy said they didn’t get any, but that he had one since one of the items that Paul had left behind was a Monster Hunter 3DS, and that it was mine if I wanted it. I heard a cry of sorrow from behind me. The guy behind me had come looking for the exact same thing, and I had been lucky enough to scoop up the one stray unit.

Think about it: If I had gotten in line mere seconds earlier or later, I would have gone home a disappointed little boy. But the entire friggin’ cosmos aligned that day, and the universe did me a solid. It’s not often that I catch a lucky break like that. A new toy isn’t exactly the solution to the crap I’ve been going through lately, but it certainly takes the edge off.

And look at that. I’ve put down too many words about simply obtaining this thing. Maybe I’ll talk about the actual machine another day. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll forget or just not bother. Who knows? Think of it as a fun surprise from me to you.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – February 2015

February, February… I don’t really have any preamble for February. It certainly was a month.

I bought a New 3DS. That’s a thing that happened.

~ Now Playing ~

Super Smash Bros 4 (3DS/WiiU) – Duh. For the first time, I think I’ve actually spent more time this month playing the Wii U version. Sounds wacky, but Smash is really great on 3DS.

Hyrule Warriors (WiiU) – Thanks to the new DLC pack, this is back in the regular rotation.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) – The cycle begins anew, and I couldn’t be happier.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP) – My brother had to re-purchase this for his Vita, and started from the beginning. Helping him work back up to a decent rank was a nice warm-up for MH4.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D (3DS) – One of my favourite Zeldas, but with better graphics and a few of the wrinkles ironed out. Terrific.

Lufia: the Legend Returns (GBC) – I didn’t like it at first, then it got better, and now it’s just feeling like a slog. Starting to remember why I don’t play many RPGs any more.

Senran Kagura Burst (3DS) – The shallowest, most action-heavy title on my 3DS. Great for when you just want to kick a bunch of butt without any thought or effort. Also I’m not terribly opposed to all the jiggly bits. The exploding clothes are a bit much, though.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii: Osu! Tatake! Ouendan 2 (DS) – Music is what brought me out of my post-separation slump. This is what put the wheels in motion. Mostly I just played “Bambina” and “Countdown” over and over.

Rock Band 2 (360) – Rocked out a little bit. Why did I bother adding this?

Pokémon Shuffle (3DS) – Freemium match-em-up. Now with Squirtles and Kangaskhans!

~ Game Over ~

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (3DS) – Like the movie it’s based on, it’s surprisingly not a massive pile of garbage. Not great, but enjoyable. Much better than Magic Pockets’ last TMNT game, anyway.

Elite Beat Agents (DS) – Eventually I was Ouendan’d out, and moved into something a little more North American. Played obsessively for a week until I was able to be “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on Sweatin’ difficulty. These games are so fun, I would really love to see another sequel…

Resident Evil HD Remaster (360) – Still a good one. Just a few tweaks away from being my ideal RE experience. Like, get rid of the crimson heads and busywork “puzzles” and it’s golden.