Went to work and did what little preparation there was to be done in order to get the trucks and flatbeds ready to leave for job sites. Much to my surprise I was actually told to help someone for the day. They must’ve felt pity for me since last week I worked a total of 5 hours tops. So my uncle Lu and I went to get breakfast on the way to our work site which is about 50 miles away from the shop. Long drive to say the least.

As we get there, all is well. It begins to drizzle and there was a cold breeze that gave me chills since I only had a t-shirt on to cover my chest. After a couple of hours of digging I decided to get myself a drink. I open up my Arizona Green Tea and took a sip before I was called back to work. After about 30 mins I went back to finish my drink off. As I’m walking I get close to the bottom of the can when I suddenly feel something wrong with my drink. Something was crawling inside my mouth so I spit it out and as I look down there is a bee crawling around the floor. I felt slight pain on my upper gum. I was pretty annoyed and then I just got pissed but I tried to ignore it.

As time went on I returned to work and helped out. Lu, who was in charge at the time told me to go back inside the house and put away the jackhammer I was using.  I went inside the basement I saw 3 men from an electrical company working there. They had a burner lit to weld some pipes together. As  I tried to put the jackhammer into the box my face suddenly felt hot. I could feel massive pulses coming from it and my ears were beginning to ring. I was too worried and too concentrated on what I was feeling than what I had to get done. I panicked and started feeling touching my face and could tell how swollen it was.

I went outside to find a mirror. My face looked like a red airhead from one of those candy bars. My eyes watery and barely open, my ears were so sensitive up to the point where any noise would’ve given me a headache and my hands began to bulge. I ran outside to tell my uncle and Lu but they could tell from my face that I wasn’t joking. I laid down for a bit trying to relax but things just got worse. My face felt fatter by the minute and I began to feel sharp pains in my chest whenever I tried to breath. Usually I’d just take things like a man and keep going but when my breathing became disrupted that’s when I got worried. I told Lu that I wanted to go to a hospital before anything else got worse. Me and my uncle went to the nearest hospital which wasn’t that far, just around the corner.

He gave me his cell phone because I didn’t have mine and dropped me off as he returned to the working site. I walk into the emergency room to see a nurse walk toward me before I could even make a step inside the lobby. She asks what’s wrong and I tell her I was stung by a bee. She takes me to a room and lays me down on the bed. I’m in a daze, not knowing what to do, just there looking for help and mercy. I go through a ravage amount of health related and personal questions as I’m being prepared for treatment. They stick an IV in me with steroids give me some benedrill. I lie down as they tell me that I’ll have to stay there for awhile in order for the drugs to work.

Sleep wasn’t a problem for me since I had about 4 hours and 30 mins worth the previous night plus with the benedrill they gave me it’ll just make it easier but that wasn’t the case. I faded in and out of sleep, waking up to cries, laughter and shouting in what I thought were hours passing by. You’d think I’d be mad about the noise but it was actually the opposite. Waking up was a reminder that I was still alive and breathing well. The sharp pains rose back and forth not knowing when to stop or go. After more sleep it died down. My face was partially back to normal with the exception of my eyes and nose which were still swollen. They release me with a prescription for steroids. I gave my thanks and I was on my way outside to call my dad in order to pick me up and get away from this ordeal and all this because of one single bee.

Fucking. Bees.
And the worst part about it is I’m not even allergic to them.

Animu

So enough persona life. How about some animu?

It’s true when they say all good things must come to an end. K-On S2 is no exception. Sure there’s a movie on the way but no more K-On Tuesdays. ;_;
This season has been a pinnacle of artwork, animation and budget. There were no quality moments save for one with Ritsu(again) and that’s about it. Every episode left me with a little something from each girl inside the show. I’ve gotta say I’ll be missing it. It’s a straight 10/10 from me.

So I’ve finally watched the long awaited Unlimited Blade Works. I’m familiar with the Fate/Stay Night universe and have some crucial knowledge from watching the TV anime adaption. UTW is a movie that follows the Rin path from the original visual novel. It isn’t considered canon to my knowledge but the movie was produced to rake in some cash and to give the fans a little something although most of those you played the VN said that DEEN fucked up once again.

Personally I enjoyed it a lot. The animation and artwork were top notch with some scenes having a small amount of bad artwork. Music was good and the plot was decent but very rushed. Anyone who hasn’t watched the anime or played the VN wouldn’t know what’s up or down in the story. I’d just recommend it to anyone who already have some experience with the Fate universe. I give it a 8/10.

Guess I’ll start off this season with something familiar. Sora no Otoshimono Forte is the follow up season to the anime of the same name minus for Forte released a year ago I believe. Genre is mostly ecchi, comedy with some serious business mixed in. All those pretty much define an ecchi show but Sora pulls it off. The first season was a riot so naturally I’d watch it’s sequel. The first episode was fuck win with Sohara fanservice and I just so happen to like Sohara the best from the cast of beauties. I’ll continue watching hoping for more dirty stuff.

So time for this season’s troll anime. Panty and Stocking bulldozed /a/ like crazy. 50% loved it and the other 50% hated it. It’s a blend of grown-up humor with PowerPuff Girl like artwork. Action wise everything is blown up with guns, swords and fighting along with the occasional humor scenes. I personally enjoyed the first episode and I’ll continue to watch it unless something up surd happens to make me stop watching it but that has yet to happen.

My Sister Can’t Be This Cute was one of the more hyped anime this time around. I believe it’s follow the novel release of the same name. Sister has a secret, she’s a big otaku that loves PC games and anime that involve little sisters. Her brother finds one of her DVDs with an X rated disc inside. Suspicious he marks off his family one by one coming up with the conclusion that it’s none of them until he brings it up during dinner where his sister finds out he has her disc. Later on she tries to find out of what her brother said was true. That he didn’t mind what her hobbies were. She shares her secret to him with big enthusiasm. Now she beings to share interest with him as he slightly rejects her likes but forced himself to go with it.

Right now I’m loving the artwork. Feels smooth and silky if it makes any sense. I also love that Tomoya’s VA from Clannad is the main male and Azusa’s VA from K-On is the sister. Sounds like win-win to me.

Bakuman is a slice-n-life esque shonen that revolved around two boys trying to become a manga artist and writer. It’s an adaption from the manga which was created from the makers of Death Note. I bought the first volume at a Barnes-n-Nobles and loved it. The first episode of the anime pretty much covers the first like 3 chapters of the manga. The animation is decent but not too flourished and eccentric like most J.C. Staff shows that involve tsunderes like Zero no Tsukaima, Shakugan no Shana and Hayate no Gotoku. I’ll keep watching the show and keep up with the manga releases here.

MM! is an anime about a masochists who’s out trying to cure his “curse”. He seeks help from a club through the recommendation of his friend who seems to be the only one who excepts him for who he is. As he goes to meet the club president he has second thoughts but before he’s able to leave the prez kicks him down and locks the door. She sees his lewd face of satisfaction and realizes what she’s dealing with. After listening to his story she accepts his request and is determined to cure him of his curse.

Only reason I decided to check this anime out was because Lelouch’s VA was the main character. It’s pretty funny with some minor ecchi…so far. I’ll keep watching for the hell of it.

So now onto the vidya

Vidya

oh him reach. What’s that? You want me to tell you what’s your ranking in the Halo series? Well buddy you just made it to #1 on my personal list. Seriously, I think it’s the best Halo game out there enough for me to go through Legendary…alone. Even the hell that was Nightfall was thwarted in my pursuit of heroic status. I love the game play blend of new powers, guns and all sorts of other stuff. It’s like a mix between Halo 3 and MW2. Their love child is my new multiplayer vidya and nothing like killing nuubs with da bros Dan, Sam, Zeta and Chad.

Recently I went though and beat Persona 4. Best fucking game on the PS2, hands down. Everything about the game is so impressive.  From the choices of dialogue to the choices of your lover and the personas you carry with you. I just loved the game but one thing I hated was a troll difficulty even on normal during the beginning and a bit in the middle. Went from bad end to true end. Gave it a 5/5 on my backloggery and I can see myself playing a New Game+ to pimp on every female within the town vicinity  but Yukiko will always be mai persona waifu. <3

That about does it for vidya. I’ve acquired Tales of the Abyss from Dan after loving Vesperia so much. Dunno when I’ll sink my teeth into that one yet since I just came from playing a 60 hour file on P4. I am interested in getting Okami since I’m already in the Ps2 mood. We’ll see.

TV

Another fall season begins and I get the most delicious shows to watch at the beginning of the week. Both House and Dexter are airing new episodes with Dex being on Sunday and House on Monday. So fair both have been pretty great.

Dexter’s dealing with his loss in his own way but yet can’t figure the world around him. Things seem to be falling apart since Dexter hasn’t been one to have emotional baggage. Here’s hoping for a great season just like the last one.

Fuck yeah, House. Last season made it official that Huddy is canon. I’ve always been a fangirl screaming for it to happen. It feels good to see House actually being happy. Sure he’s struggling a bit with his new relationship. Trying to act human unlike the tyrant heartless man he was before. I’m glad to see things finally going his way for a change but they’ll eventually put some big conflict in there to keep it juicy. As long as they don’t break up ever I’ll be good.

Big post is big. Didn’t read it all? I don’t blame ya but at least I’m posting.
Later.

Lots of ground to cover on this post, but as usual, I’m gonna start off with the work segment. We’re currently in the middle of remodeling the department. The coolest part of the remodel is that now we have a gaming display near the registers. There’s two TVs, one with a 360 and one with a PS3. At the 360, one or two people can play Halo: Reach. On the PS3, you can sample the Move and… Whatever the sports game is that comes with it.

The town I work in is chock full of casuals, so I expected the Move display to be at least somewhat popular. Nope. Nobody gives a flying fuck about it. Reach, on the other hand, almost always has at least one person at it and usually another person or two watching/waiting in line. People take one look at the Move and dismiss it for what it is: A pitiful Wii knockoff. Of course, I wouldn’t call it that without a valid reason. I actually tried the Move myself. “Sure, it’s painfully unoriginal, but maybe the motion tracking tech will impress me”, I thought. Wrong. The original Wii Sports still looks like a technological marvel compared to this crap. The Move is going to crash and burn, and I’m going to be rocking this face the whole time. Nintendo won the motion control game four years ago, Sony. Deal with it.

Onto personal gaming stuff. I mentioned in my last regular post that Arc sent me four games for my birthday. That was at the end of July. I’ve only made time for two of them thus far: Mega Man Legends and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Let me start off by talking about Legends for a bit. As a kid, I rented Legends. A lot. I remembered the final boss, but I couldn’t remember if I ever beat him or not. Legends hit a sweet spot for me that no other game has before. It had been just long enough since my last playthrough that I couldn’t remember anything that happened ahead of time. As events unfolded, they felt new and fresh, but once they did, I was hit with a sudden wave of, “Oh yeeeah! I remember that!”

I can easily see why I had such a good time playing it as a kid: Legends is one of the most downright charming games I’ve ever played. It took me about an hour to get used to the controls, but otherwise, it’s aged extremely well. It’s not terribly long, the story’s not all that complex, and the gameplay doesn’t really do anything special, but everything about it just oozes charm. I think I can safely say that it reestablished itself as one of my top 10 favorite games of all time. Where on that list, I don’t know, since I’m fucking awful at putting my favorite anythings in order, but it’s up there.

>mfw Legends 3 was confirmed

I “completed” it on Normal in a little over ten hours. I was having such a good time with it, I went ahead and plowed through it on Hard (under 5 hours) for true :C: status. I should really get serious about tracking down a copy of Legends 2, especially now that Legends 3 was confirmed for the 3DS. If anybody’s got a copy of MML2 that they would part with, hit me up.

Now for much less glamorous game accounts. First up, Portrait of Ruin. Pretty sweet stuff. I can’t think of nearly as much to say about it as I just did MML, but it was a fun trip. Definitely one of the better Metroidvanias, but I still preferred Ecclesia and Aria. Some broworkers and I all grabbed the original Left 4 Dead on impulse, plowed through the campaign and then never touched it again. I feel like it didn’t get the love it deserves. I’d like to play with some folks from The Brologgery, but I’m still way too addicted to Reach to bother with L4D at the moment. Someday, though!

Speaking of Reach… Reach is good. Reach is really good. How good is Reach? Really, really good. I could write a full review and then some. I may just do that, because this post is already going to be long enough as it is. Did I mention Reach is really good?

Winter Contingency

On the subject of not-Reach, I’ve kind of gotten into Scott Pilgrim lately. Backloggery was abuzz with chatter about the game, so I, having never even heard of Scott Pilgrim before, downloaded the trial to see what all the hype was about. Pretty sweet stuff. Everybody says this, but it’s true: It plays like a modern day River City Ransom. Naturally, the game led to interest in the new movie. I unlocked the full version of the game, shut the Xbox off, then went to see it. The movie snowballed into buying the books off of Amazon. The entire series kinda rocks.

Last but not least on the gaming front, there’s this sweet little gem I’ve been neglecting on account of Reach being so good, and that gem is Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. Chances are you’ve seen at least one person around Backloggery playing this by now. Basically, you play an adorable little girl named Recette. You and your loan-shark fairy Tear open an item shop, aptly dubbed “Recettear”, as a means to pay off your father’s debt. You buy low/sell high from other vendors and tackle 2D Zelda-esque mystery dungeons in order to procure things to sell in your shop. The more business your shop gets, the more complex the shop managing mechanics get. You go from simply selling things off the shelves to doing things like recommending items to customers and taking preorders on specific items.

In short, it’s just a really charming, unique and addictive game that shouldn’t be overlooked. Twenty bucks is a little hefty (this coming from a big fan of the game), but thankfully there’s a free demo up on Steam. Grab that and see what you think. I clocked in around two hours on the demo prior to buying the full thing. Definitely long enough to get a decent taste of things to come. Try it out!

The anime season is winding down, and that means shit I love coming to an end. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure everything I watched this season has some sequel work in the making. K-ON! is getting a movie (so I hear, anyway), Mitsudomoe is getting a second season next spring and I’m pretty sure Highschool of the Dead is getting a second season as well.

Sad to see K-ON!! go. I’ve dabbled in a lot of shows (by my standards, anyway) this year, but K-ON!!’s been my main squeeze since April. It outdid the first season in pretty much every way. It easily takes the cake for the most consistent anime I’ve ever seen from a visual standpoint. I’m too lazy to find a screenshot, but there was only one QUALITY moment in the entire season (Ritsu’s eye looked gimped up in one of the later episodes). Ah well. It was fun while it lasted, but better for it to have a true, bittersweet ending than degrade into NEVER-AGING MOEBLOBS FOREVER.

I found a new favorite in Mitsudomoe. I’m pretty sure I’ve said all of this before, but it’s just a downright funny show. The art’s not great and there’s absolutely no plot, but it’s chock full of constant (immature) humor. Really glad that it’s getting a second season. Gotta thank Ant again for recommending it, because I’m positive I would’ve overlooked it otherwise.

I still haven’t actually seen the final episode of Highschool of the Dead and I’ve already got a pretty massive word count on this post, so I guess I’ll just leave that for next time. I’m still slowly (like 1-episode-biweekly slowly) getting through B Gata H Kei, as well. Going to be keeping an eye on the following next season: Iron Man, To Aru Majutsu no Index II and OreImo. I’ll be open to recommendations after the second or third week of the season, though. I like to have one completed show to watch alongside the new season’s offerings, so I’m looking around. Might give Durarara a shot. I hear it’s pretty nice.

Alright, post over. brb, Reach.

First review in a while, and on the highly-controversial Metroid: Other M to boot. Other M hardly needs an introduction, but what else am I supposed to do with all of this space?

Other M is the lovechild of one of the most bizarre and unexpected partnerships in gaming history: Nintendo x Team Ninja. Nintendo, known for their bubbly, child-friendly games and storied franchises and Team Ninja known for balls-to-the-wall Ninja Gaiden games and a very deep appreciation of the female form (NSFW). Depending on who you asked, that combination was a recipe for either great success or soul-crushing failure. Now that the game is out, opinions still seem just as split.

Let’s add one more to the mix, shall we?

SETUP

Other M begins with a beautiful retelling of the events of Super Metroid. Samus reflects on her battle against Mother Brain and her relationship with THE BABY the Metroid hatchling until she picks up a distress signal. The signal carries her to the moon space station where the entirety of the game takes place: the BOTTLE SHIP (referred to entirely in caps throughout the game for whatever reason). Once aboard the BOTTLE SHIP, you run into Samus’ former C.O., Adam Malkovich, and his squad. After some more cutscenes detailing the relationship between Samus and Adam, the action starts.

Before long, you’re thrust into the first boss fight and introduced to the now-infamous weapon authorization. Samus agrees to follow Adam’s orders while aboard the BOTTLE SHIP, meaning all of Samus’ toys are prohibited until Adam says so. Adam allows you to use Missiles and tells his team to use “freeze guns” rather than allowing you use of the Ice Beam. This kind of thing repeats several times throughout the game. You’re constantly taunted with upgrades and the like that are out of reach only because Adam won’t let you use the tools you need. Needless backtracking, ho!

The only case where Adam’s cockblocks make any sense at all are Power Bombs, but only because they’re apparently powerful enough to vaporize every living thing on the station at once or something. I view it like this, though: The alternative to Adam outlawing your equipment is yet another freak explosion that strips you of your gear and regaining it via one of two methods. Method one: Chozo statues. Why would the Chozo have any presence whatsoever on this Federation space station? Method two: Random upgrades. Why would the Federation be manufacturing upgrades for the Power Suit, the only suit of its kind in existence? Authorization seems less ridiculous when you look at it this way. Is it still stupid? Yeah, but it’s not quite as stupid as the alternatives (Aside from the Varia Suit authorization. That one’s just a dick move no matter how you look at it.).

GAMEPLAY

The game plays like a dream, if you’re ever dreamed about what a 3D Super Metroid would feel like. (And really, who hasn’t?) Team Ninja’s handiwork is most apparent here. Samus moves with a kind of lethal acrobatic grace never before seen from a Nintendo character. Combat is fast, fun and incredibly fluid, and stays that way until the first person mechanics come into play. By pointing the remote at the screen, you enter a very Metroid Prime-like first person view that brings the flow of combat to a grinding halt. Samus turns from an acrobatic death machine into a stationary target. Thankfully, it’s only mandatory a few times. Aside from a few scenarios, you’re free to dispatch enemies without the use of first person.

It’s more linear than most if not all of the other games in the series, but at its core, it’s Metroid: You collect upgrades, you do some light puzzle solving and you kill stuff dead, but this time you’re killing with an excessive amount of style.

SOUND

Staple Metroid tunes are here and there, with some new tunes sprinkled in between. For the most part, though, the music is little more than background noise. The most memorable tunes are going to be ones you’ve heard before, but the new stuff does a nice enough job of maintaining the atmosphere.

Voice acting is a mixed bag. Most everyone is done well enough, aside from Samus (no longer voiced by Jennifer Hale). Unfortunate, considering that she has the most dialogue. Most of her lines are either narrating a flashback or reflecting on her surroundings. I’ve always depicted Samus as kind of emotionless, but she sounds a little too monotone at times. Thankfully, she really comes alive during the more dramatic scenes.

PLOT

Taking place between Super and Fusion, Other M is essentially Metroid 3.5. The main point of the story is to explain Samus’ relationship to Adam, but this ends up only being part of the experience. After a bunch of flashbacks, you’re dragged into a murder mystery, and later, a full-blown military conspiracy.

The plot exposes Samus for such crimes as being human and having emotions. No longer is she the soulless automaton we all knew and loved. Now she’s a believable character with a traumatic childhood that will still wreck your shit from one side of the galaxy to the next.

VISUALS

The visuals as a whole are nothing short of astounding, especially considering this is a Wii game. Not only the graphics themselves, but the presentation and, of course, Samus’ arsenal of ass-kicking moves courtesy of Team Ninja all combine into one hell of a visual experience.

The BOTTLE SHIP is home to some mean ambiance. The station is dead in space and derelict aside from you, Adam’s team, and lots of critters that want you dead. Once the game’s murder plot comes into play, things start to get the best kind of creepy.

CONCLUSION

Other M was an experiment. It’s a brave game that takes several risks with an established franchise, with mixed results. Samus is shown to be more vulnerable than at any other moment in the series. She’s shown to be human. Yet, at the same time, she kicks more ass than she ever has before.

Yes, she IS fishing that horrifying monster out of a pool of lava using the Grapple Beam.

None of Other M’s flaws are things that couldn’t be easily remedied by a sequel using the same engine. Tweak this, remove that, get rid of those annoying search segments (or at least make them less strict), and suddenly most of the haters are having a blast.

Other M seems to be the kind of game you either love or hate. As of the time of this writing, I have yet to see a single lukewarm reception to it. It’s either brilliant and a must-play or the worst game in the series. I fall on the former side of that fence, yet a few friends with very similar tastes fall on the latter side. If you’re the least bit interested in it, do yourself a favor play it. Rent it, buy it, whatever, but give it a chance. Personally, though? I’m in love.

Metroid: Other M

5/5

So it’s been more than a month since my last BtP post so I guess I have more to talk about this time.
Driller job got a lot slower this month. Before I was raking in 400 bucks a week but now since there isn’t much work I get sent home after 2 or 3 hours of being there so I bring home like $150 but that’s all good to me. Get dough for show then play the rest of the day. Fuck yeah.
My James Bond job aka waiter job has its highs and lows. Highs is two work days a week on the weekends and lows is no days. We’ve got two weeks of no work so that means I get to experience weekends again and it starts on Labor Day weekend so three days off, yeaaahhhh.

Recently I just bought myself an iPhone 4 and let me tell you how awesome and great it is. I do find some bugs here and there like reception not being as good as it was but they hardly get in the way of actual phone usage. I’ve already spent like $40 to $50 on apps. Most of em being games. Feeling like a boss with it since now it replaced my Zune which I stopped carrying with me every since I got a car but now that my phone is my mp3 player I’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve dumped a select amount of music on there from albums I listen to actively so about 15 GBs of my 32GBs are music alone.

Animu

K-On‘s still number one for the whole year since nothing has been as exciting and unique moe as it. Dan and I agreed that it’s been one of the best budgeted anime out there. Their S2 has been nothing but great quality artwork and animation all around when most studios get lazy around episode 3 and 4 so they let the quality slip.

But now K-On seems to towards its end since they’re really focusing on how the girls are about to graduate high school…cause…you know. The moe isn’t so moe when you reach college.

Highschool of the Dead is constant with their “suspense” but it has some real time elements on how much the survivors’ mentalities are taking a toll. Saeko was my favorite from the beginning but this latest episode was completely centered on her but no complaints from me. what I’m liking most is the fanservice err how Takashi is showing a darker nature to him than before. There’s only like 3 episodes left and things seem to be steering a bit away from the manga as I’ve heard but I’m liking how their taking a different route. It may not be completely but their spicing up the anime to be better than the manga.

Shit seems to be going down in Ookami-san. Antagonist is making his moves for his diabolical plan to succeed. Of course Ookami is a light hearted anime but it can have its serious moments. The balance of both is why I anticipate it every week and next episode looks like things are getting heated. Love confession time? Well if it didn’t already happen it’d be all good but now maybe the tables are turning. And I’ve already had enough of Kuruko’s narration. My ears, ouch.

I decided to pick up Occult Academy out of curiosity and its entertaining. Centers around the destruction of the world and how the main characters, Maya and Bunmei must kinda Nostradamus’ key in order to prevent what will happen. It can be a slow sometimes and character development is basically non-existent but its sill worth a watch. Character relationships are what basically drive me to keep watching it.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! is a fanservice anime that can get really dry at times when it dosen’t deliver what it exist for. Sure love triangle here and there is fine but when it gets no where that’s when shit gets boring. Give me fat cat tits or don’t give me anything.

Vidya

So I finished of Tales of Vesperia. Massive time sink that accumulated about 60 hours of my life but they were not wasted. I’d really love to play some more Tales games with a similar fast pace system but seeing how fucked up Bamco is it’s become less likely as the days go by.

Ever since then my backlog has been buking for a long time/ Most of my :U:s come from my DS games which go untouched since I lack the motivation. Right now I’m working through Metroid Other M and Wario Land: Shake it. I’ve still got Assassin’s Creed for 360 to beat and Halo: Reach is right around the corner. I’m also wondering what new FPS I should get for my ghetto pals. Medal of Honor or Call of Cuty: Black Ops. Might have to go Black Ops despite me hating Activision with a passion unless they pull a pay-to-play for multiplayer. If they do than fuck that, I’m out.

Other M feels weird to me at the moment. I can say that Team Ninja really tried on the story but gameplay is okay so far. Feels kind of a chore to turn the Wiimote and shoot on screen for missiles and shit especially when you got fast enemies ramming you every time you aim. I’m not all excited about the graphics either but I’ve never been about them. We’ll see how it goes from here since I’m taking my sweet ass time with it.

Wario Land: Shake It is pretty good. The gameplay is simple and can be fast pace toward the end of every stage but it just makes it more exciting. I love the artwork and slow of everything. It reminds me of old interactive PC games if that makes any sense. I’m still on World 1 but I’m taking my time with it just like Other M. Trying to balance the two.

So that about does it for me. in b4 another month until I post.

]]> http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/the-filler-arc-iii-15-%e2%80%93-death-and-all-his-friends/feed/ 2 Arcadios http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/dan-timed-hits/ http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/dan-timed-hits/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 22:30:35 +0000 Dan http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/?p=2186 ]]> Whoops. Been about a month since my last post. Doesn’t seem like it was that long ago… Where’d July go?

Got an amusing work tale for once instead of a rage one. You’d be surprised at how many people think Walmart Electronics is some kind of free, 24-hour tech support line. Seriously, out of all of our phone calls, I’d say 3/5 are questions about stock/pricing and the other 2/5 are “MY COMPUTER GOT VIRUSES HOW DO I FIX IT”.

Anyway, this guy calls and says that he bought a Blu-ray player from us and that it “broke his TV.” I’m like, “There’s got to be a connection problem somewhere. It couldn’t possibly ‘break your TV’.” He swears that his TV “stopped working” as soon as he hooked the Blu-ray player up to it. I spend about half an hour listening to this guy ramble on about his problem before he gives me time to start asking him questions. I asked for specific details on his setup. He says he “hooked it up with the HDMI cable.” I asked him to be more specific. “Well, there’s HDMI ports on my TV, right?” “Right.” “There’s HDMI 1 and HDMI 2.” “Okay.” “I put one end into HDMI 1 and the other end into HDMI 2.”

Facepalm of apocalyptic proportions.

“So let me repeat that back to you… You hooked one end of the cable into HDMI 1 and the other into HDMI 2?”
“That’s right.”
“That means that both ends of your cable are plugged into your TV, right?”
“Yeah.”
He still didn’t get it.
“If both ends of your HDMI cable are hooked into the TV, what’s connecting your Blu-ray player?”
“…Oh, so that cable goes to the player?”

I had to spend another 5 minutes from that point walking him through how to move that cable. He didn’t even seem surprised when he realized what he’d done. Ah, to be old and tech-illiterate.

Anyway, onto the usual media sections: games, anime and… movies?! Seems like as soon as I finish one game/show/movie, two show up to take its place, hence the title of this post. BOOHOO, LOOK AT ME, HAVING THINGS TO DO.

Unfortunately, Gears 2 co-op didn’t happen. Arc’s new job means late night gaming is basically out of the question and my internet is too horrible to play during the day. Curses. Still been keeping plenty busy despite that, though. Halo 3 and Rock Band 2 multiplayer is always a given, but I put a pretty good chunk of time into Red Dead Redemption.

I can’t speak highly enough of RDR. It’s definitely a grower. What at first seemed like a just-decent Western take on GTA ended up being more enjoyable to me than any of the GTA games. What was once a boring, empty wasteland became a living, breathing world begging to be explored. Great characters, great soundtrack, beautiful visuals and super fun gameplay are topped off by an actual story, unlike the typical GTA “LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM OF BLOWING SHIT UP AND GET BETRAYED BY ONE OF TWO PEOPLE AT SOME POINT” routine. Long story short, this game is fantastic. Definitely my runner-up to GOTY 2010 behind Mass Effect 2 so far. (Hi, Sam.)

Next up is BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. I just completed the Story mode last night and, to quote Arc, “my mind is full of fuck.” Still trying to piece together all the things the ending dumped on us. Story Mode as a whole was lots of fun. Really glad they streamlined the routes instead of LOSE HERE, DISTORTION FINISH HERE, REGULAR WIN HERE, DISTORTION FINISH HERE, LOSE HERE, TRUE END GET. Things got a bit more crazy and convoluted than they were in CT, but hey, that’s half the fun of BlazBlue’s plot, I guess.

Gonna be doing multiplayer for a while. Going to grab some extra achievements, but I don’t think I’ll complete this one like I did CT. Why? Challenge Mode. No, really. Score Attack was the hardest achievement in Calamity Trigger and I got CS’s Score Attack achievement in one hour thanks to GIGANTIC TAGER, but now a new fiend has appeared, and its name is Challenge Mode. It’s just way too unforgiving for me for too little reward.

In closing, Makoto is awesome and Valley Pirate Girl Nu is love.

Onto my current timesink: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. What is it with Zeta giving me great, castle-related XBLA games for my birthday? Last year was Castle Crashers and this year it’s Castlevania. Anyway, while it’s not very long (had it beaten in like 3 hours, if that), it’s the kind of game you just keep playing over and over again. Six levels, a hard mode loop and five characters with different playstyles means there’s much fun to be had. Went through the whole thing as Soma with Zeta as Jonathan, Bible Thrower Extraordinaire. Been playing a bit with Hojo, Seijika, CherryTonic and MinhT, as well. Who knows when I’ll put this one down.

Oh yeah. What is it with Dracula and his seemingly infinite stores of Biker Jackets and Curry?

Definitely going to be busy on the gaming front for the next… Well, a long time. I already had some Unfinished lingering around, and now I’ve got an additional four as birthday presents from Arc. Metroid: Other M comes out at the end of the month and Forklift Simulator 2010 comes out the second week of September. I just know I’m going to abandon everything for Reach, so I better get crackin’.

Been just as busy with anime as I have with games lately, it seems.

Tsundere megane twintail fang girl? Oh my. Highschool of the Dead is the same as it was when it started: A huge pile of mindless fun. Been loving every second of it aside from the recaps during the fourth episode.

…No, really. Episode 4. Recaps. WHY?!

:winky:

Took me long enough, but I finished Working!!. Really enjoyable show, aside from it basically revolving around the worst character. Eagerly looking forward to the second season, knowing full well that it’ll probably be just as full of Inami bullshit as the first season was.

K-ON!!’s still going strong. Recent episodes haven’t held a candle to 14, but they -are- delivering moments like the screenshot above, and that’s good enough for me. Seems like a fillery downtime right now while they keep the graduation stuff to the final episodes of the season. Fine with me. Let me enjoy the schoolday antics a little while longer.

Last but not least is the biggest surprise of the season for me, Mitsudomoe. Ant suggested in the comments of my last post that I pick this up, so I did just that. Hilarious stuff. It’s really immature, but I don’t care. If it’s funny, it’s funny. Give it a shot if you want some laughs.

On top of everything that got a screenshot, I -still- haven’t finished Cromartie High School (instead I just watch repeats like every night before bed), I’m at 2/12 episodes for B Gata H Kei and I only watched the first episode of Ookami-san. To make matters worse (or better?), I’ve got like 5 Blu-rays I haven’t seen yet. I did manage to watch Kick-Ass, though. I’ve said this before, but I’m the type who rarely sees movies and is therefore easily impressed when I actually DO see one. Maybe it’s for that reason that Kick-Ass instantly became one of my favorite movies ever. I dunno. I also saw Despicable Me recently. Not great, but good. Huge storm rolled through and after two hours of sitting in the dark I just decided, “Fuck it, I’m gonna go to the movies.” Would’ve seen Inception or maybe Grown Ups but their show times weren’t as convenient. Next on my list is Taken, which I’ve heard from at least 15 people is unhealthy amounts of Liam Neeson ass kickery. I’ll get around to it sooner or later. I’m just hardly ever in a real movie mood and it’d do nothing but water down the experience if I forced myself. Dig?

Aaand that’s all for now. So much to do, so little time! Next on my gaming plate is Mega Man Legends. As for everything else, impulses shall guide my way. Before you go, a video relevant to the post title.

Somebody, anybody, fund it.

I come to to find a foe worthy of my glory. So far there have been many challengers, some of which held power devastating by your world’s standards. However, none of them have been able to counter my Shining Crasher! Not a single one! Is this planet of yours so barren of worthy foes that I must leave with a yawn instead of an approving nod!? I scoff at the idea. Surely there are still many more powerful foes ahead! Even the planet of Ninkledork had one powerful foe, even if he used machines! For he was using the power of his genius mind to construct such a device. That was a great battle indeed. But enough talk! Today I am here to rest, and speak of the things I have done in the time where I was not searching for powerful foes. Time to kick back and chat about the things I love: video games and anime. Oh yes, even Legendary Heroes can like such things. And like them I do! Seeing as this is but a casual blog,  I guess I too will speak more casually “up in this mother fucker” (as you humans say).

Now GAEMS and ANIME. Let’s rock this party to the moon.

GAMES THE SHAMES

“Stop Sakura, you look gimped!”

There has been a megaton of SSFIV. Over a bijillion hours! Breaking that crazy time down it goes something like this: 50% Replay Channel, 40% Offline Shiz (Trials, Arcades, etc), 10% Ranked. WHAT’S THE DEAL. I don’t know. I lack confidence online. Mostly due to bad luck! Yes let’s blame it on that. I could ramble on forever about the really lame stuff that’s happened to me, but that isn’t my STYLE. I also want to 100% it. And I love watching good players go at it. Fun for the whole family!

My characters and why? GLAD YOU ASKED.

T. Hawk because he is a beast and has an amazing command grab and I guess because he’s Native American which makes us technically the same race sorta. REPPIN MY BOIZ DOWN SOUTH.

Vega/Balrog/Claw cuz he is very wicked and believes ugly things should not exist in this world, a philosphy I can sure get behind!

Sakura represents my hidden desire to be a Japanese schoolgirl.

??? I CAN’T EVER DECIDE. Now it’s sorta shifting to Dee Jay because he is funky and is always happy, a mood I can get behind! Also his cross-up tactics are so trolly they make me dream of dreams. But there’s also Rose who despite having a kind of weird looking character model compared to the other gals, has some pretty delish stuff up her sleeve. Who to choose!?

I wish there were more homeskillets or even aquaintanceskillets to play with, though.

LOOK OUT IT’S SO SCARY

Cursed Mountain. Some survival horror made by some company? Somethnig like that. I bought it because it was cheap, nobody else was gonna buy it, it’s a survival-horror and the box art made me smile. It was going along standard and dootdoot then I shot lasers out of my ice axe to banish ghosts to some sort of weird realm. That instantly made the game worth every single cent even though I stopped playing it recently…just for a bit though!

It’s about some Scottish drunk who goes to search for his brother that got lost in the Himalayan mountains. The mountain is CURSED, though, you see. You can say it’s a … CURSED. MOUNTAIN. So a bunch of ghosts and shit appear. No ghosts have really acted too spooky or jumped out at me yet, they all appear in a triggered cutscene. If anything, THOSE startle me. “Lalala walking along the path- WHOA CAMERA ANGLE CHANGE oh it’s showing off a ghost.” What’s more is that you can still move sometimes while the ghost is doing its thing. So there’s the ghost being all creepy and in the background you see the Scottish drunk tool-walking around the joint aimlessly.

There’s also osu! aka weeaboo: the musical. It’s fun.

ANIME THE GRANDIME

I was watching lots then I stopped to watch a couple moe shows. So let’s go over those! Suck it, gendo. These won’t be too long since I’m not too great at talking about anime (like I’m any good at talking about games)

Where’s Aoi

Working!! Good times all around. Poplar and Inami are a’ight, but it’s all about Aoi. The supporting male characters were way more yay than any of the non-Aoi girls. What’s with that!? Near the end of the show, I actually fooled myself into thinking it was gonna end with a let’s deeto some moar/kiss/ANYTHING. I thought the two romantic interests were gonna hook up. In a show like this? Not a chance, fuckshit! They’re gonna have a misunderstanding and the show’s gonna end RIGHT FROM WHERE IT BEGAN BASICALLY. If he had manned up and stuck his junk in her mouth then the ending woulda rocked. Oh well. To S2!?

This is basically the show.

Mayoi Neko Overrun! I dunno if it actually has a exclamation point in its title, but everything these days does, so better safe than sorry. It was 50/50. Half of the episodes were corny and lame “WE R TOMODACHI” type stuff while the other half was insanely golden. Add a shitload of fanservice and you got a weird anime. The male characters are pretty bro.

That’s…pretty much a wrap, I guess. Enjoy the free post, guys.

FLY, FLY, FLY! TO PROTECT OUR FUTURES! MOONLIT SUPERMAN! GO!

Certain days I was giving back breaking tasks to help the other guys around and others I was giving easy and shit tasks that had us waiting for a couple of hours doing nothing but sitting. I’ve bonded with most of the guys and they’re pretty great people. Got the usual hard ass boss but even he can be pretty cool. Work schedule has be turning a 180 though. I use to go to bed from 5 in the morning, waking up around 3 in the afternoon. Now I gotta wake up a 6AM and if I get home I usually wanna lay flat down dead on my bed. Too bad though, I hit the shower after some internet browsing since I’m usually dirty and sweaty as hell but for the pay and the amount I’m making a week it’ll be worth it.

I’ve still got my waiter job but only do nights and weekends. So badass driller during the day and James Bond gentleman at night. Just who am I?

Animu

Kinda dead on the animu now other than the most diabetic inducing K-On episode every. Mugi is mai new k-on waifu replacing Yui but she still remains top tier. ;_; Episode from last week was really the best. The whole time my face hurt from smiling so much. This past week’s episode seemed like a dead one but apparently nothing is boing in K-On. Had my fill of laughs at the end.

Other show from this season I’m watching is Amagami SS. Harem show where each heroine’s arcs are fully animated with them getting chosen by the main character at the end. I’m guessing about 4 episodes per girl. Seems good for a time killer.

2nd show from this season is Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatchi or just Ookami-san for short. School club that helps everyone who asks for their assistance but only for a favor in return when they need one. Romantic comedy that’s pretty okay plot wise since there really isn’t much to go on. Artwork is pretty high to be for J.C. Staff. Even on the third episode it hasn’t gone down in quality. If anything it’s gotten better.

Third is Highschool of the Dead. I didn’t really care about it at first but I had nothing else to watch. Seasons aren’t like they use to be with Geass and Gurren Lagann. Eagerly anticipating the next episode every week so you have something to look forward to. HOTD is pretty fanserivce everywhere show with something for everyone. Either zombies, gore, panties or tits. If you don’t like any of those then why are you watching anime at all?

Vidya

I’ve been sitting on the edge of losing my legendary weapon for awhile now. Back during July 4th weekend I bought Dead Space which made me hit my 5th . Still have Super Princess Peach and Trauma Center in the back burner, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon hasn’t even been put in my DS yet and I’ve still got Bit.Trip Void on my Wii waiting to be  on it’s final level but my motivation to get through it is below nothing.

Once in awhile you get a really good game in the sea of mediocrity and Dead Space was one of em. Pretty late to the party since it was released like 5 years ago so it hit the platinum hits list and priced at 20 bucks. Didn’t know what to expect except some half-assed scare tactics and some third person shooting but boy was I wrong. The scare tactics are actually…scary. Even when I was playing in my well lite room I jumped a bit when shit came out of nowhere. Would’ve been more fun if I turned off the lights and shit like I should’ve done.

I give it a 4/5. Everything was great and the gameplay system was smooth as fuck despite me having died a lot due to me first run being on Hard .  Only thing I was kinda upset about was the story presentation. Call me a faggot but I would’ve liked it with some cutscenes instead of a tiny pop up window to explain what’s going on. Isaac Clarke is a badass though. Case of STAY FROSTY, ISSAC DO EVERYTHING. I’ll definitely get the sequel when it comes out.

Just yesterday I went digging around Gamestop since Dan told me about the Buy 2, get 1 free deal they had going on. Went to a Gamestop a town over even though there’s like three here. Reason why I did was because I had to go cash my check in and it was right next to it plus visiting the game Gamestops gets boring after awhile. So browser around a bit know I’d get Batman: Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed but I didn’t know what to get as a third game. Looked around and found Tales of Vesperia for 30 bucks. Said fuck yes, fucking bought since I’ve been meaning to play it because my only Tales experience was Symphonia and it felt clunky to me. Dan kept telling me that Vesperia’s system was way better than it so I said I’d give it a shot.

So I’m on my way home when I text Dan (Yea, texting and driving, fuck da police) about the games I bought. Told me to return Vesperia since he bought it for me the other day as a gift. Was like “awesome but fuck” so instead of driving back the the town away GS I go to my local one. Asked the guys at the counter if I could return a game even if I didn’t buy it at that specific store. They said sure. So when I take out Vesperia one asks:

Cashier – “Why are you returning this?”
Me – “Friend bought one for me so there’s no reason to have two copies”
Cashier to other worker- “That Vesperia is mine.”

Needless to say he was pretty happy. Did some more browsing and decided to get Wario Land: Shake It, Kirby: Squeak Squad and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. One was free and minus the 30 from Vesperia I just had to fork over 13 bucks.

So I’ve still got 4 games that aren’t getting any attention and get 5 new games adding up to 9 then I’ve got Vesperia coming in the mail marking me to 10 s. R.I.P Legendary Weapon. You will be missed.

So I let the people on twitter decide which game I’ll playthrough first and it was between Batman and Assassin’s Creed. Everyone picked Bats so I was on it. The environment and atmosphere are a fucking dream along with the graphics. Super hero vidya game at it’s best and that’s saying a lot if we look back to Try’s April fool’s stream of Superman 64.

Only beef I got with it is I wish the combo system lasted longer. Makes it hard to chain em together but that’s about it. Pretty insignificant with the rest of the game’s presentation. I’ll start Assassin’s Creed after beating Batman to get my silent killer persona on and then switch up with Vesperia every now and then whenever I feel like for something else since I’ve been craving an RPG for awhile now even if it’s an action RPG.

That about does it for the vidya. Dunno if I mentioned this last post but I started watching Dexter and just caught up to it in 2 weeks. Not bad since it’s 4 seasons now. 5th coming out in September along with House’s new season. Add the new games from E3′s announcements and you’ve got the best fall ever in the history of time plus it’s fucking fall, bro. Who dosen’t like fall?

Until next time.

]]> http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/the-filler-arc-iii-14-%e2%80%93-frank-the-digger/feed/ 2 Arcadios http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/dan-sweet/ http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/dan-sweet/#comments Sat, 10 Jul 2010 06:34:47 +0000 Dan http://boardtheplatforms.wordpress.com/?p=2131 ]]> Still nothing particularly whine-worthy going on at work lately, so let’s delve right into the good stuff. I picked up the original Gears of War on a whim and co-oped through it with Arc on Insanity. Neither of us had the Insanity achievements (I actually didn’t even have the Hardcore achievements, since my first and only other run was on Casual Shameful.) and it’d be a Complete for both of our backlogs, so why not? It went far more smoothly than I’d expected. I’m admittedly not all that great at Gears, so I was expecting the worst. There were a few bullshit encounters, but overall it wasn’t so bad. Wish I had a dime for every time I heard, “MARCUS, DOM IS DOWN!”, though.

I’ve already picked up Gears 2, as well. Going to give it the same treatment as soon as Arc’s done with Dead Space. Speaking of Dead Space, I’ve gotta get around to playing that myself. Arc seems to be creaming himself in pleasure (and/or terror) every time he plays it, so I’m looking forward to it.  Holding off on it until I’ve made some headway into Red Dead Redemption, though.

Sam and I wrapped up Halo Wars. We’ve been grabbing a majority of the achievements, too. It really grew on me. That could have something to do with the fact that we’re done with the campaign and have been doing a lot of Skirmish lately. Skirmish gives you a lot more freedom with your strategies than the campaign does, plus you get to play as the Covenant. Scarabs = <3

Now for my biggest impulse purchase in recent history: Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Lots of people seemed hyped about it and I had yet to play a rail shooter on the Wii, so I picked it up, despite having no exposure to the original game outside of Backloggery streams. It definitely delivers on fun, action and challenge (I played as Isa on Normal. I’d hate to see what Hard looks like.), but the story seemed like an afterthought. Fine with me, though. I didn’t get it for the story. I got it to blow things up. Mission accomplished. Up for a fairly-short-but-tons-of-fun action game? Need a reason to dust off your Wii? Like rattling your house with explosions via surround sound? Check out S&P2, then.

Side note: S&P2′s soundtrack = Yum yum yum.

Back to Red Dead Redemption, though… I’m not sure what to think of it yet. It plays about like I expected: A western GTA. Not sure if that’s going to do anything for me or not, though. I think the setting is really well done, but it hasn’t done much to immerse me so far. I hope and kind of expect that to change as the story progresses, though. If you were to compare my progress to GTA4, I’d still be running taxi errands for Roman. Far too early to form a solid opinion.

Hoping I don’t lose focus in any of these endeavors. Been having a bit of gaming ADD lately. I can’t bring myself to play Super Princess Peach or 3D Dot Game Heroes AT ALL. I was enjoying 3DDGH for a while and… I don’t know. The novelty just wore off. I haven’t really enjoyed SPP since I started it. I’ve picked it up once every week or two since I got it and tried to get into it, but it’s just not clicking for me. Hopefully RDR will be good enough to snap me out of the funk, and there’s still Dead Space in the wings if RDR falls through for me.

So, how’s that animu front?

Understatement of the week. K-ON!! continues to succeed any and all expectations. Fantastic episode after fantastic episode and the quality has been scarily consistent. It seems like they’re surpassing themselves every week. Episode 12 was hilarious and it’s like they tailor-made Episode 13 just for me.

Little brown Azusa's glorious comeback.

Despite all the recent Azusa lovin’, though, Episode 14 is probably the best one yet. The long-awaited Mugi episode. Pretty much every other character got one or even two episodes before she got up to the plate.

My thoughts exactly. Gotta say, though, it was more than worth the wait. Mugi’s not even my favorite character yet her episode entertained me more than any of the others so far. To top it off, we got the best ED the show’s had since it began and a rockin’ new OP along with it. Not sure where I’d place the new OP in comparison to the other two just yet, but the new ED is instantly #1.

Interested in seeing where the remaining episodes will take us. Yeah, K-ON!’s never been heavy on any semblance of a plot, but the second season has slowly been pushing towards a graduation episode. Curious to see where it goes from there.

New show for this season: Highschool of the Dead. Simple enough concept: Group of highschool students band together to survive a zombie apocalypse. Blood? Check. Gore? Check. Gratuitous amounts of fanservice? Check. This show seems like such mindless fun. I love it.

Still Shuckling my way through Working!!. Really doing that show a disservice. Gonna try to wrap it up pretty soon. Been meaning to start Dexter, too.

Guess that does it for this Bizarro of a post. A bigger anime section than the gaming section? Nah, it’s just the screenshots. Oh well, anime HAS been better to me recently than gaming has. Good stuff on the horizon for gaming, though, such as Gears 2 Insanity co-op (more like BRO-op amirite) and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (Hype GET). Next post shouldn’t be so topsy-turvy.

Now, onto more pleasant topics. Been pretty busy as of late. Lots of progress on both games and anime, including my first Master Runs since February (Resident Evil 5 Clean Professional). Yesterday I took a trip with two of my bros to rent a tux since one of them’s getting married tomorrow (Or today. Whatever. The 26th.). I’m pretty sure I mentioned this at some point on BtP or maybe Twitter, but the shop I had to get my tux from is about an hour south of here. There’s a big two-story mall a few blocks away and inside is this Japanese import store. It’s a pretty cool place, putting aside the fact that 80% of their merchandise is from Bleach and Naruto. Hidden amongst the bleh are some pretty cool items. They had some tiny figurines I was interested in (a few anime-related ones, but mostly just adorable Koopa Troopas and the like), but I passed on those since I don’t really have anywhere to put them. I didn’t come home empty handed, though. When I first visited this place a few months ago, I got two posters. This time I brought home three more and a sleeping Pikachu plush for about $26. Not bad at all. If you’re looking for a quick self-esteem boost, click here!

On to games. I beat Super Mario Galaxy 2. I basically still feel the same about it as I did when I posted my impressions. Leaps and bounds greater than the original. Not much else to say. Where’s my 320kb MP3 soundtrack rip, Japan?

Uncharted 2. It took everything I liked about the original, refined it, and slapped in a ton of helicopters and explosions. The result is delicious. I hated that it still fell victim to the bullshit quasi-supernatural enemies late in the game like the first one did, but oh well. Great stuff. Uncharted 1 and 2 are the biggest reason I got a PS3 in the first place, and I feel like it was worth it. The next time I hit a dry spell, I think I’m going to give Valkyria Chronicles a shot.

Battle Bros

Been on a bit of a Halo kick lately for some reason. Sam (my Halo wingman of 5 years and counting) and I were just chilling in an XBL Party and thought, “Why not do a Master run for Halo 3?” So we did. We turned on Iron, Tough Luck, Fog, Thunderstorm and Famine (check this page if these terms are foreign to you and you actually give a damn) and plowed through the entire campaign in one night. We felt like it might’ve been too easy, but A) it fit the legal description of a Master run, B) we’re admittedly pretty good Halo players and C) Halo 3′s a pretty short game to begin with, so we brushed off any doubts we had and rolled right into Halo 3: ODST. We took the same ruleset and bumped it up a notch. Fog was out since there’s no radar in ODST to begin with, so we slapped Mythic in its place. It was definitely more challenging than the Halo 3 run. I think Mythic (double enemy HP) combined with the fact that your character is weaker in ODST than in Halo 3 really made the difference. Nothing we couldn’t handle, though. Two nights of Covenant slaying later, we earned another :M:.

The icing on the cake of text you just skipped over would be Halo Wars. We’re currently working on co-oping the whole campaign. It’s pretty nice. It’s an RTS and would therefore be more fun on a PC, but they made it work.

On to anime. For all my progress, I’ve actually fallen behind on K-ON!! by two episodes and I’ve been behind on Working!! from the get-go.

Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone was pretty cash. I’ve admittedly forgotten a fair deal of the original series, so I couldn’t tell what cuts had been made. I actually think that was a good thing, though. I was able to just enjoy the movie instead of nitpicking about insignificant omissions. Looking forward to the sequel, especially since it throws both Asuka and Mari into the mix. I’ve never cared all that much about Rei.

Tales of Vesperia ~The First Strike~ was about a million different kinds of YES. I was actually a little nervous that it might feel painfully tacked on, what with it being a prequel to the game, but they really pulled it off. Only thing that could’ve made it better was a dub with the same cast as the game, but we all know how much Bandai hates money.

Oh CoalGuys, you cads.

K-ON!! (or more accurately, K-ON!!’s budget) continues to impress. I’m really surprised that there’s STILL no definite episode count yet. I wasn’t expecting more than 12, but here it is, still going strong with no signs of slowing down. I like to think that this is where all of Haruhi S2′s budget went.

Darker than Black. Fucking awesome or FUCKING AWESOME? It ended up breaking into my Top 5. Loved it.

I mentioned in my last post how I chose poor DVD quality rips over Blu-ray because the DVD rips were dubbed, but a few episodes after that I found a 720p Blu-ray dub torrent floating around. Shit was beyond cash. Bring up the full size version of the above screenshot and compare it with this one. In the words of the mighty Smash Bros. narrator, NO CONTEST. I’m going to roll right on to Gemini of the Meteor instead of waiting for Funimation to dub it. Something tells me they won’t bother, but even if they did, I don’t want to wait.

Guess that’s all for now. Hoping things continue to be as cash as they have been lately. Not going to bother making predictions for my next post. As Nathan Drake would say, “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, the post title came from this song.

So life…the great mystery and my not so lack of one. Been pretty active socially now. Chilling after work with co-work bros instead of just heading home when I’m done with my shift. Been hitting up some parties too an d drinking it up a bit but not enough to be considered tipsy. Worked pretty hard last week compared to the usual but this week is completely empty. No clue what I’m gonna do for a time sink even considering animu and vidya.

Animu

K-On‘s been keeping me smiling and laughing every episode this season. Funny since the first one had more substance but I’m not complaining…cept I still want more Mugi since they gave Sawako her screen time last episode.

FullMetal Alchemist is nearing it’s end since the manga finished a week ago. So far the anime’s quality has sky rocketed with good reason. Would’ve hated Bones to no end if they spewed half assed artwork and animation. Here’s hoping for the rest to be just as good.

Kaichou wa Maid-sama is a little something I’ve been watching just to keep me occupied plus Eclipse was subbing it so it has to be somewhat good. Alpha female Misaki Ayuzawa is ideal female in school that everyone admires…well all the woman at least. She’s the school president and only just recently did the all girls school started accepting men to enroll. Misaki starts taking the offensive when the new boys start harassing the girls. Much to her shame though, she’s poor since her father left her, her sister and mother when Misaki was young. To make up for the tuition she works part time at a cafe but not just any cafe, a cosplaying cafe. Now she has to keep her secret from the students while she continues to work there and take responsibility as the president but all doesn’t go well when a mysterious young man finds out what Misaki is hiding.

Working‘s been 2nd only to K-On this season which isn’t saying much for such a lack luster anime season but it’s still great. I’ve recommended it to Dan and he’s been trying watching at his own pace and he seems to be enjoying it too. Nothing like comedy with a tiny hint of romance to get some hnnnggg going on.

B Gata H Kei was a little side show I picked up when it was three episodes away from finishing. Was a romantic comedy where this girl wanted to get a 100 fuck buddies. Thing was she was a virgin and didn’t really know how to go about doing that despite being (supposedly) hot compared to everyone else in the school. Then he meets this loser looking guy and decided he’ll be her first fuck buddy since he’s a virgin too. I gave it a 5/10 for keeping my entertained for a bit but it wasn’t really anything special.

Vidya

Funny how I’ve been playing nothing new except Gears 2, Modern Warfare 2 and the occasional Super Princess Peach and Trauma Center but something magical happened to make this post not to boring. “What was that magical event that occurred?” you might ask. Of course it’s E3. It needs no introduction cause if you don’t know what it is then you might as well get the fuck out right now.

Now I’ll go about reviewing what was shown at the press conferences but only the ones that really mattered. Taking about Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony if ya didn’t know by now cause everything else sucked balls but I’m gonna put a different spin on my review since The Filler Arc has always been special in it’s own way and a leader, not a follower. (:awesome:) I’ll be posting a K-On screenshot with subtitles that express what I felt during the conferences of each separate company. Now let’s get on with it.

Microsoft

What the fuck, Microsoft? Where the games at? Only good games we’re gonna be getting are basically Gears 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops but instead we’re force feed Kinect till we chock on it. Microsoft pulled a Nintendo back when all it was showing was Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music during the past E3s. Nothing to see here, folks. Unless you’re a massive casual.

Sony

Personally I’ve stopped caring about Playstation since it revealed the tripple. Sure hardware wise it can kill the other consoles but what’s the point when none of the games they’re putting out is making good use of it’s potential save for like…Final Fantasy XIII. So did Sony bring any games that look promising this year? Nope. Just a massive amount of montage videos of mediocre games on PS3 and PSP, some guy named Kevin Butler or something talking about “epic” speeches that lack any type of news on new games for the tripple and oh yea, they did mention a lot of the Move.

What is “Move”? Pretty much just a straight rip off of Nintendo’s Wiimote. Pic for Sony pretty much is all I have to say about the Move. ORIGINAL IDEA DO NOT STEEL

Nintendo

Ladies and Gentlemen. Followers of the Wii that have been pondering if it was ever worth keeping their system since all there is are a handful of rare gems and a shit load of shovelware. We have reached the moment in time where we can finally see the Wii pay itself off. Nintendo first dropped bombs and made dollars when they announced the Wii. People looked at it and thought promise when it was revealed. A year later, we see Mii’s on screen making music and playing sport resort games along with fueling the newly renovated casual fanbase with work out cash cows like Wii Fit. “Where were the good games, Nintendo?”, we asked. “Why have you betrayed us?” Don’t get me wrong, we had some good titles like Mario Galaxy, Wario Ware, Metroid Prime 3, Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Paper Mario but they didn’t last us very long compared to the longevity of the Wii. Some third party developers made great games like No More Heroes and Muramasa but we wanted games that made Nintendo what it is today and now we finally get what we have been praying for since day one.

Mario Sports Mix seems decent. Nothing too exciting but worth a check if you’re bored. Epic Mickey we’ve been seeing for quite awhile but the game footage in E3 made it seem so much more. I’ll be checking it out but what turned us on our heads were the return of two of our favorite characters. Kirby and Donkey Kong. Kirby Epic Yarn is HHNNNGGG all over. It looks adorable and it seems to play extremely fun. People are disliking it already since it seems like there won’t be any copying abilities this time but I’m looking past that and seeing how awesome of a game it’ll be.

Donkey Kong Country Returns looks fantastic. Not one of those Kongo drum games either. It’s a full on platformer hence the reason behind “Country Returns” and it looks orgasmic. Some said they were skeptical since Rare, who made the original Country trilogy, weren’t being a part of it but now it’s in the hands of Retro Studios. The same people who made Metroid Prime. Prime was and still is a classic so I don’t have any doubt in my mind Retro will make magic with DK.

Funny how I’ve been ranting about Kirby and DK when Zelda was one of the first games shown in Nintendo’s E3 show. I heard about the technical difficulties in the demo but haven’t seen that for myself but I have seen the video they showed for it. A lot of people and backloggery buds seem to like the new art style. Personally I don’t really find it too appealing. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Wind Waker to death and I enjoyed Twilight Princess but to mash the two together isn’t something I find ideal. Dan agrees with me on that too. We’ll still be checking Skyward Sword out but here’s hoping it comes back and kicks me in the ass for doubting it.

Now let me talk about the 3DS. Shit looks pretty awesome. The shine off of it can make the sun jealous and the variety of colors can make any rainbow straight. So far from what we’ve heard it can process enough power to match up to current gen home consoles. Sounds like a bit of a stretch but from what we’ve seen from the tech demos they might have not exaggerated it. They showed a list of games after Nintendo’s presentation of upcoming games. Few names that screamed INSTANT BUY were Paper Mario, Mario Kart, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and remakes of Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time. Sounds like a solid line up to me. Hopefully at least 2 of these games will be a launch title to get us addicted quick.

Music

“Music section? But Arc, we don’t care about your crappy jungle music!”
I’ll briefly mention some rap but I’ll hit it up with some nice alternative too.
I picked up Drake’s new album “Thank Me Later” on a whim when I went to Best Buy. He may not be the most lyrical rapper out there but he is creative and clever. I enjoyed most of the album save for about the handful of auto-tune songs that he sung on which just left a bad taste in my mouth. You’re a rapper not an R&B artist or T.Pain so leave it at that and stick to writing and rhyming.

So that’s it for the rap.
“Wait, there’s more?” Two weeks ago there might have not been more. Taking a recommendation from Dan I decided to try listening to the Foo Fighters. I’m not too foreign to rock and alternative since casually enjoying em on Rock Band and going as far as to buying some CDs from Led Zeppelin and ACDC but now I turned to some alternative. I liked Foo’s stuff on RB when I bought some of their DLC songs and liked their songs when they had radio play.

First album I bought was Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace off Amazon. After the first listen I thought it was great but then I kept playing it over and over up until the point where I loved it. I can’t say anything bad about the album since every song is good or better. I’d have to say that I like Come Alive, Statues, Stranger Things Have Happened and The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners are my favorite songs on the album.

So after I loved Echoes I went after another album that was on Dan’s God Tier list of Foo albums and bought The Colour and The Shape. After my initial listen I kinda was turned off from it since it has some screamo during the songs at some point but there were enough songs on there for me to like the album like Monkey Wrench and Everlong. I don’t listen to it as much as Echoes which is funny cause it’s the opposite for Dan but I like enough to call it a good album.

That about does it for this post. Kinda long? Nah, just a lot of pictures but even this is more than what others post *cough* Linko *cough* Chris. Anyways, hopefully I have more to say next time.

Until then, later.

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