Any way the wind blows

I’ve been playing Okami for about two weeks now. I’m not finished yet (and I’m certainly not looking forward to it ending), but I’ve got to say that it’s likely the best Playstation 2 game I own. I don’t know what you’ve heard about Okami by this point, but it is very well worth looking into. It’s so beautiful and original, plus it’s drenched in Japanese culture and style. Delicious. I think the best way to sum it up would be saying that it’s the PS2 equivalent of the Legend of Zelda. Truly, Clover (the team behind Viewtiful Joe) knows what they’re doing when it comes to video games. Maybe I’ll review it in full someday. For now, I just have to concentrate on finishing it.

And while I’m on the topic of Japanese culture, wow.

I’ll do anything for money

So yesterday was pretty good for me. First of all, I finally finally got my dumb driver’s license. So I’m basically not a loser anymore. Awesome.

More importantly, I went to see the Trailer Park Boys movie. It’s was pretty much the best movie ever. Plenty of stuff for fans of the show, and very accessible to those who’ve never even heard of it. But yeah, it was freakin’ sweet. Any movie that has Rush’s “Spirit Of Radio” as the title catch is a winner in my books. Oh, and it was funny too. Damn funny. Makes Talladega Nights look like Macbeth.

I get real mean

Sorry for the lack of posting lately… no one really cares, but I figured I’d apologise just in case. Anyway, the whole “work” thing is really cutting into my “screw around on the internet” time, so I dunno. I’ve been posting a lot over the last couple months, but that’s gonna tone down a bit.

So October’s upon us now, and while that’s all good and Halloween, it’s Band of the Month time today. And it’s one of those rare months when the Botm isn’t a band, but a single artist. And that artist is Dweezil Zappa, son of none other than the legendary Frank Zappa. The name Dweezil is kind of odd, but it’s actually the most normal of all the names of F. Zappa’s kids. Certainly you’ve heard of at least Moon Unit (the remaining two are named Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Muffin). I actually quite like it myself. But BotM is not about the name! It’s about the music! I first heard of Dweezil from the Conker Live & Reloaded Soundtrack, where he and Nile Rodgers cover the “Surf Punks” track. That was always my favourite track from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and holy smokes do they ever make it awesomer.

Maybe a year later it hits me to actually look up some of Dweezil’s other stuff, and aside from the fact that he’s a bit obscure (even though his name’s Zappa), there was plenty to pick at. Frank Zappa was true guitar legend, and that’s something tought to live up to. Dweezil is very, very skilled with the guitar, and I’ve gotta give props to some of the songs where he just shreds, like “The Return Of the Son Of Shoogagoogagunga” and “Confessions Of A Deprived Youth.” The only issue I’ve got is his vocal work. Now, the Dweezil’s got a decent voice, it’s just that he doens’t use it quite properly all the time. That or the lyrics are poorly written and make the vocals sound bad, evidenced by how covers like “Anytime At All” (The Beatles) and “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama” (Frank Zappa) sound excellent in all aspects.

So yeah, definitely look into Dweezil’s stuff. I can’t say you’ll be thrilled by everything you find, but I can tell you that the album Confessions in particular has a bunch of really great songs on it. If you pay attention to the guitar work more that the vocals, I’m sure you’ll be able to appreciate the bulk of what’s out there. Also, he’s got really sweet hair, just check out those killer sideburns. Let’s see… sweet hair, cool name, awesome guitarist… yeah, I totally want to be this guy.

Make me feel like dirt

Well, I guess my resistance to the 360 is about to be put to rest for good. I always said that I’d buy an XBox when Rare made a Banjo-Kazooie game for it. Of course, I didn’t actually think it would happen. Hopefully – hopefully – the price will go down once the Wii and PS3 hit. It doesn’t need to though, so I doubt it will. Not to mention that if Rare pulls, well, a Rare, the new BK will probably end up on the XBox 1080 and be suck-tastic. I really like the trailer though.

Looking ahead for the first time

The forums are back with a fresh coat of paint, eagerly awaiting new use. I know I tried this before with disastrous results, but oh well. Try, try again. All the “classic” user accounts are still active and have kept their post count, so Forums of Death alumni will have a head-start in the rankings. Whatever that means. If you forgot your password, just send me an e-mail and I’ll change it for you right away.

Enough of this jibba-jabba, click on the angry avatar to head on over.

I’m a winter breeze in summertime

I’ve recently bought two new games for my Nintendo DS: StarFox Command and MegaMan ZX. I mentioned Command not long after I picked it up, and while I haven’t rambled on about ZX yet, there is a small link between the two that I feel I should express my feelings about: aging characters. Really, I just want to get the unsavoriness of that last post off the top of the page.

I don’t know how well you’re acquainted with MegaMan and all the various MegaMan spinoffs, so I guess I’ll give you a quick breakdown. The series started with the original MegaMan. Taking place many decades after that, you’ve got the MegaMan X series, featuring all new characters and whatnot. Taking place about a century after the X comes MegaMan Zero, which stars MegaMan’s partner from the X series, Zero. And now, another century after that, we have MegaMan ZX. Only this one’s main characters aren’t even robots at all. They’re humans who essentially dress up as MegaMan X. Now, the game is excellent, but every time Capcom introduces a new MegaMan series (that isn’t some alternate timeline like Battle Network or Legends), the characters get further and further away from the source material. I guess it helps to keep the games from getting stale, but really, will they even be able to call the next spinoff a MegaMan game? If the trend continues, there will likely only be a brief mention of the characters from ZX, nevermind any kind of MegaMan.

So what does this have to do with StarFox? Well, the thing is, Nintendo’s doing the same thing with those characters, just at a much slower pace. In the original StarFox, the team consisted of Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy. After Star Fox Adventures, a new character named Krystal joined the team and Peppy stepped back from an active fighter position to just an onlooker. Now in Command, he’s gotten real old, and taken over for General Pepper, who’s been confined to a sickbed. By the next game, General Pepper will be dead, and I just don’t want to see that day come. Because then it’ll be Peppy’s turn, and damn Nintendo if they think they can just kill off Peppy. StarFox Command has a lot of different endings, and since we don’t know which one is the “true” ending, there’s no way to know how the next game will turn out, but some of those endings suggest that the next entry in the Starfox saga will star someone other than our beloved Fox McCloud. And that would be horrible.

But why does it have to be this way? Why have the StarFox characters been plagued by age, while Mario, Donkey Kong and Captain Falcon stay infinitely frozen in time? I guess maybe because StarFox is a little more story-/character-centic than those franchises, but that still isn’t a good enough answer. Just look at Metroid, for example. The Metroid series has developed a very deep storyline as of late, but Samus hasn’t aged a day. And the basic story structure between Starfox and Metroid is the same. They both star hired guns who fight on the side of good, who often go out of their way to help people even when no reward is promised. So why does Fox fall victim to time while Samus is forever young? Just because you have an sequential story doesn’t mean that you have to age and kill off the characters.

So I guess there’s something for you to think about. I guess it’s nothing really important, but it’s something that I thought might make a semi-interesting post. Maybe I was wrong, I dunno. I really just needed something to occupy my mind for a half-hour or however long it took to write that. And, you know, the unsavoriness.

You’ll find love again, I know

If you pay attention to my blog ramblings, you may remember that for most of February of last year (and some early March), I spent a lot of words going on about… well, stuff I don’t normally go on about. And you were probably confused by it all, because I was very vague about it all. Yeah, I’ve gotta do that again today, so feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs. They should mostly be ignored, as it’s just a place for me to vent.

If you did understand what was going on last year, then you might have come to the conclusion that I’ve been smitten by the same problem yet again. Yup, old Ryan is broken again. It’s not a fun feeling, and I rather wish that it would stop happening. I mean, it shouldn’t be this way, but my mom keeps bringing up the subject in question, and it’s not helping. When people keep talking highly about something I don’t have, I tend to start to want for it. Badly. Like, can’t sleep badly. Maybe all people do this, maybe it’s a problem specific to me, I don’t know. What I do know is that I was much happier without this particular issue. But I have decided to tackle it head-on this time. Not at all wise idea, because failure will result in the loss of something very valuable to me, and I have no hand in the outcome of this particular scenario. However, I have a nearly infallible game plan, so I’m not sure what I’m so worried about. I guess I’m just afraid of a repeat of last time. But this time I am armed with knowledge, strategy, and the power of the rebound. You know, the more I type, the better I feel about this whole thing. Venting really does help!

On the upside of it all, since the job prospects are looking excellent (more on that next week) and I’ll definitely pass my driving test next time (October 6th, baby), should I prevail in this current endeavor, I’ll have the holy triad of success. Or in layman’s terms, I’ll be cleared of my “loser” status. I mean, all I really need to regain the respect of others is a job, but the other two would be very nice luxuries indeed.

And now to lighten the mood – Phoenix Wrong! (Make sure to check out the other two as well, they’re all hilarious.)