I’ll be a pharaoh soon

Since the time I first decided to buy into the hype and start watching it, I’ve been a pretty big fan of Fullmetal Alchemist. Some of the fandom is because I’ve always been interested in the concept of alchemy, though the show kind of fantasizes the idea. If you’ve never watched it, it’s basically magic with a loose scientific explanation. Given that physical alchemy is currently viewed as a sort of front for a type of spiritual growth, maybe it’s not too crazy that here it’s portayed as the ability to alter matter by scribbling shapes on a nearby surface.

I’m also really keen on the characters. Yeah, it’s an anime, so they do often fall into the common tropes, but on some counts, they feel very original to me. Mainly the principal characters, Ed and Al. The two are brothers who tried (and failed) to resurrect their mother via alchemy as children. The botched transmutation cost the former and arm and a leg (ha!) and the latter his entire body. The big thing that separates these two from the bulk of anime heroes is that they don’t have a grand cause. They aren’t out to save the world. They aren’t trying to win over the hearts of their romantic interests. They aren’t training to become the world’s greatest pokémon trainers alchemists. Nope, their only goal is to restore their bodies and make up for their mistake. With a twist of guilt as well, as either brother always seems more concerned about getting the other’s body back to normal than his own. Ed especially, as he was the one that led the charge into the realm of tabooed alchemy, which left his brother’s soul tied to a magically animated suit of armor.

The villains are pretty neat too, being false humans (known as homunculi) created by… well, that’s a fairly important plot point, so I won’t spoil it here. But the idea is that they don’t want to rule the world or take revenge on the human race or anything big like that. They are simply soulless creatures living as human husks, and as such their goal (or at least for the ones with the majority of screen time) is a humble one; to find a way to make themselves true humans. While that would rob them of their immortality and totally sweet super-powers (imagine goth X-Men), it would seem that being able to live forever just isn’t good enough for some supernatural beings.

Anyways, more to the point, I’ve been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which I was informed was different than the original series, but as far as the first ten episodes, it seems like more of an abridged version with slightly better artwork. I’d read that the original run had its own story, different from the manga it was based on, and that Brotherhood was a more precise adaptation. I’ve never read the manga myself, but the main difference I’ve seen so far is that Brotherhood skips a lot of the filler episodes and focuses on the events that further the overall plot. This isn’t to say that I’m disappointed with how the series is so far, I just imagined there’d be some more stuff in there that we haven’t already gone over. Like the first episode. And the new(ish) conclusion to the (first? I forget) Liore incident.

I might have to look a little closer into how it all unfolds before I invest in the rest of the blu-ray sets, but the original run was 50-something episodes long and this one 60(ish?), so maybe it branches off a little farther down the line. Even if it doesn’t it’ll nice to have a crisp, high-def collection of the series.

In the zone

Having finished Brutal Legend (which is a totally badass game, BTW), I started playing Dead Rising 2 last week. Not more than a few hours in, I discovered an adult shop on the main strip of Fortune City. Inside was a shelf full of the item you see above (in several exciting colours!). In the game, it is called a “massager,” but we know that’s not the whole story.

To recap: in Dead Rising 2, you can beat zombies with dildos.

What’s even better though, is that later on I found a survivor in a tanning salon. Her predicament was that she accidentally stayed in the tanning bed for too long and got a little extra crispy. She then needs you to fetch her a drink to rehydrate, and you have to carry her deep-fried body back to the emergency shelter. It was just before I left to find a beverage for the young lady that I noticed one of these massagers on the tanning bed that she had previously occupied. I guess there’s no mystery as to why she was in there too long.

Bass!

I complain about it sometimes, but I don’t hate my job. It’s not very challenging, and it’s often quite boring, but I get by. Lately, it seems that getting by involves reading a lot of random Wikipedia articles. Like on Thursday when I read that last year somebody thought it would be a good idea to port Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 to iOS. And I think it would be a good idea to give this person a nice, long handy jay.

Needless to say, I downloaded it right away. I may not have ever mentioned this before, but like many, I was pretty obsessed with the THPS series in its formative years. These days it’s crap, but THPS2 is the cream of the crop. It was the perfect sequel for a fledgling series; basically the same game as the first but with a few gameplay improvements and loaded down with more content. By the time THPS3 rolled around it was beginning to get excessive, and I just didn’t feel 4 at all.

I lost interest by the time Tony Hawk’s Underground hit the scene, and though I think Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is an all-around stellar game, it still doesn’t compete with my undying love for the second entry in the series. Which I am now playing on my phone.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother getting the THPS2 app, but it was two dollars and somebody lost my PSX version disc years ago, so really I had no choice in the matter. After all, this is one of the two games (with Megaman Legends) that forced me to break down and get a Playstation all those years ago. I’ve spent about two hours with the game over the course of today, and I have both good and bad news.

Firstly, the bad news. And it’s really bad. I am very upset to report that Activision replaced the entire soundtrack for the iOS port. This is a terrible thing, because the original THPS2 soundtrack was awesome. I wish I could make that awesome more bold, because I mean it more than anything ever before. The THPS2 soundtrack was such an epic thing for me that I feel it necessary to pour some beer on the curb for my lost friend. This was the time after Napster, and I was still only starting to learn about music beyond the radio’s limited and stagnant output. The 15 songs included on the THPS2 disc led me into new and exciting genres, like punk, good hip-hop, and Rage Against the Machine. The iOS port has a bunch of soulless, generic garbage by bands/rappers that I could not identify. In fact, if I hadn’t just watched the in-game music credits, I would have hypothesized that Activision just went to the closest record label and asked for their 10 (9? I forgot to count) cheapest songs. But it gets better! There is apparently a workaround that installs the original music! I haven’t tried it yet, but the fact that it claims that it can be done without jailbreaking my iPhone fills me with delicious hope. (EDIT: It works!)

The other downer is, as with many of the apps I’ve downloaded, the touch controls. You’d think I would have learned after Secret of Mana that they just don’t work well for action games. And SoM is a fairly slow action RPG. THPS2 requires much more complicated and precise inputs. The touch interface is unreliable and inaccurate, making this game in particular very difficult. With a wonderfully tactile controller and buttons, I could have achieved the SICK score in the first stage after maybe one or two warm-up runs. It took me almost all day to get it with the sloppy touch screen controls. There is an accelerometer option, but I think that would end up even worse, seeing as it doesn’t even work great with I Love Katamari, which doesn’t need button presses in addition to tilts.

The good news is that other than the inferior soundtrack, the game is represented in its entirety. Or at least as much as I can remember. It lacks create-a-skater and park editor modes, but I find those superfluous anyway. All the skaters, venues, tricks, and gaps are accounted for, though I can’t speak for any unlockable stuff. Not that far yet. Also, once you get used to the controls being more than a little wonky, the game is still awesome fun. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s the best Tony Hawk game, and now it’s portable. And it’s two dollars. Did I mention that it’s only two dollars?

Sleeping about 18 hours a day

I’ve been watching the 80’s G.I. Joe animated series, and it started fairly harmlessly. It was G.I. Joe battling against Cobra over superweapons and while maybe it asked me to suspend my disbelief a little higher than usual (re: weather dominator), it was all pretty on the level for a cartoon. Later on, things got a little out of control, with plot elements like alternate dimensions and city-destroying vegetables and gigantic Egyptian gods. It was getting really sci-fi up in here, but nothing ever really made me sit up and say “hey, now this is just ridiculous.” Until this particular scene.

I don’t know what it is, but something about Cobra Commander sitting calmly whilst having a strategic discussion with a parrot really struck me as odd. Maybe because the parrot is standing on his desk. Parrots don’t stand on a desk, they perch on something. Anyways, just thought I’d share that.

A generation born in denial

I may have forgotten to mention one particular game the other day. A game which I don’t play too often, but when I do I really get dragged in… Minecraft.

Of course, Minecraft. Everyone’s playing that gosh darned Minecraft. Like I said, I don’t log on often, though if I do I end up trapped in that world of crafting and mining for hours on end, much to the dismay of Morning Ryan. Getting up for work is a real bitch when you were up most of the night digging a really big virtual hole.

And last weekend, my little brother-in-law (to-be, if you want to pick) showed me a gun mod for the game that he’d downloaded and installed. I wasn’t super impressed with the idea of putting guns in Minecraft. And then I was given a demonstration of the high explosives. He put down approximately 100 blocks of the so-called “nuke” in a small shaft near the bottom of the map, and then climbed to the top of said shaft (with a super-awesome grappling hook, by the way). He then proceeded to fire a rocket down the shaft.

That’s when the laptop froze.

For a few seconds there was nothing but silence and a frozen screen. Then things started moving again, and we looked down the hole. Inside was the most gigantic hollowed-out cavern I’ve ever seen. It was bigger than probably all the caves I dug in my first world combined. It was amazing. I’ll admit that I took my time getting home, because there are some things that even exploding the fuck out of Minecraft cannot top. But when I got home, I was on that mod like jam on toast!

This is a small island just east of my sand castle in my second offline world. As you can see, I have strung a series of nukes around the perimeter of the island, and even buried a few in random spots around the sand. This island was infested with zombies at the time, and I was hoping to get an image of them on the island, but I wasn’t able to slip away without them following me. There’s one in the water, and a creeper swam over to the island after I left, but it’s not the same. Now, behold, as I make this entire island disappear! And it’s not going to disappear into time or something silly like that. It’s going to vanish forever.

I will admit, that as cool as the nukes are, unless they’re in an enclosed space, they don’t work all that great. A single box won’t make a much bigger divot than a regular TNT. They also have a fuse, no matter what sets them off, so a nuke set off by a nearby explosion will bounce away and tick for a second or two before it goes off. This makes careful planning important for clearing away large above ground areas.

Voila! As I said, nukes will bounce away from other explosions, so it wasn’t a perfect detonation (it took 4 missiles to set it all off). I would have liked the crater to have been a little deeper too, but the end result is super satisfying. Just look at that wonderful destruction! I also waited until daytime so it was easier to see.

Now, despite the display of awesomeness, you may feel like the gun mod still violates the spirit of Minecraft. And I don’t disagree with you. I don’t see myself using the bulk of the mod items for anything other than explodinating entire islands (or mountains!) at a time. Of course, that grappling hook, which can be thrown to create a rope that goes down until it hits a block, is something that should absolutely be a legitimate Minecraft item. Ladders are neat and all, but the grappling hook is a spelunker’s best friend.

And sometimes it can be so satisfying to pop a cap in a creeper’s ass. Teach those fuckers to explode my library.

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!