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March 29, 2007

This is a new blog post I am writing.

My mood has and continues to crash and burn this week. It's pretty shitty of me, being all broken like I am. But maybe I'm starting to recover... last night I was pretty... bleh. Hopefully that was the low point, and I'll start swinging back up. You never know.

So since last I blogged I bought two DS games at Target's slight DS game sale, so I'll talk about them real quick.
First is Kirby Squeak Squad. Have you played a Kirby Platformer? Then you know what this game his. I consider that a good thing. I like Kirby. Hell, I bought Kirby's Adventure on the VC as well. It's amazing how little the series has changed since then, but how purely fun it still is.
The second game is Custom Robo: Arena. It's like a super-chibi Virtua-On with a pointlessly wordy and annoying story mode and online play. The combat itself is pretty fun, although the compy is starting to get really cheap. But at least once I lose a couple times, it gives me the option of taking the easy way out and lowering my opponent's max HP. I need to play it online some sometime. I am annoyed that I can't pick a female main character for the stupid story mode. There's no reason at all why I have to be a guy, it's just shitty. I do like, however, the diorama thing. You sorta get these little sets and pose your robot, and before you fight someone, they see your robot in the little scene you set up. That's pretty neat.

I wrote a chapter of Role-Playing, and the start of another. I also went and found a great pod-safe theme song for the thing. Once my mood recovers a bit more, I'm going to try to get the entire first arc in the can, writing-wise, and then give recording it a try. I don't know how good I'm going to be able to do the voices. I know I can do Rebecca, but doing enough voices for the other characters? I dunno. We'll see. I'll also need to set up a website and stuff, I suppose. But that'll be later, after I have something to put there. I should just focus on creating it for now.

Posted by poetfox at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2007

Form Baton and Balance Stone

My birthday has come and gone, and during that time I have obtained a Wii and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. And now I shall report on the Wii, I guess.
It's just like I thought it would be.
Okay, a little more? Okay. I like Everybody Votes, even if it is stupid. It's a fun stupid. The message board is fairly useless, but oh well, I'll probably send obscene messages to Droid with it. Wii Play is not really all that engaging. I can see me playing the pool game again, but other than that...? Eh. There are better options on Wario Ware. Wii Sports is Wii Sports, and it's still pretty cool, though simple.
There is a game in Smooth Moves that I cannot beat no matter how I try. You're supposed to straighten a stack of papers in your hands using the Mortar and Pestle stance, but it's impossible. Thus, if you see that stance come up, there's a good chance you're going to die. There aren't that many games for that stance. It's a death sentence. Other than that, I've had no real problems, once I got the hang of it. The game is just as fun as previous Wario Wares if not moreso, which isn't suprising because it follows the same formula AND has you jumping up and down like an idiot. The multiplayer is alright, although it's annoying only having one life in the basic survival mode. You should have 3, or 4, like the normal game. You can get knocked out quick, especially if the Mortar and Pestle scenario I outlined above occurs. So far, we've found the best Multiplayer variant is the one where you get to pick who you're passing the remote to and what stance they have to do. Suprisingly, picking Mortar and Pestle to try to screw people over hasn't occured in the playing we've done so far. The multiplayer minigame Space Nose is both hilarious and fun. Anyway, if you're a fan of the series like me, this is a no-brainer purchase, but if not, I'd wait until it hits the bargain bin. But it is most definately fun.

On Virtual Console so far I've bought:
Bomberman '93: It's a very classic Bomberman, and that means I have Bomberman multiplayer at my fingertips from the Wii menu. It supports 5 (!!!) players, which is due to the Turbo Grafix or something. I'm glad to have it.
Gunstar Heroes: The Treasure Classic I've never played. It's hard. Jonathan and I, working together, were dying on easy. But it is a lot of fun, if you like that Contra/Metal Slug style action. And the 3D really is impressive, for being on Genesis.
Wario's Woods: Jonathan said that he would go halvsies with me on it. I didn't need much more motivation, as I was thinking about it anyway, so I snapped it up. Wario's Woods is really quite weird, as far as puzzlers go, but it really is a lot of fun, and I'd rather pay 5 dollars for this NES version than 8 for the SNES one which is the same gameplay with slightly better graphics.
I'm going to be picking up Kirby's Adventure soon as well, as I'm a huge Kirby fan (apparently Kirby Squeak Squad is on sale at Target this week, expect me to pick that up), and MAYBE Super Castlevania IV. Other than that, I see nothing up there right now I need, but I'll be watching new releases like a hawk, you can be sure.

In other gaming news, the day BEFORE my birthday, Spaeth, filled with need to play Crackdown, went in halfway on a copy of Crackdown. The game is awesome. I mean, it is quite simple. Not a lot of variety. No story. But it's just FUN. You just dick around, parkouring all over the city and blowing up shit. I've put in a bunch of hours myself, as it is very fun, and I will go and, at the very least, max out all my agent's skills and quickly take out all the bosses, even if I don't go after all the cool achievements. But man, watching Spaeth play... it is just no end to entertaining. I don't know how to describe it. Justin Spants is just such a unique individual, and he talks to everything in the game, and tries the most retarded stuff... it's just... damn, it's entertaining to watch. He'll be over tommorow to play even more.

Is there anything else going on with me... I don't know. I don't think so. I keep using Twitter far too much. Keep watching the little box over there, or subscribe to me, or whatever the fuck you do with Twitters, I dunno. I'm going to watch The 1up Show while I do the last of these stupid teeth things, and then go to bed.

Posted by poetfox at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2007

Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...

So, okay, here was my day. SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT. It has lived up to the hype. It is a very good game. I have gripes, but these are gripes based purely on the few things they've actually changed and improved on with subsequent Castlevanias. I want more warp points. I want to pick where I'm warping to from a map. I want save spots near bosses, or at the very least, some indication that I'm walking into a boss room. These are all things that they've fixed in the many GBA and DS Castlevanias. But it's just amazing, after having played those, to go back and play this, and realize just how cut-and-paste all those were. Because they are. Completely. But Symphony is such a good game, it doesn't get old, even after being rehashed this many times. It's just really good.

The March of Vampires has bitten my brother, too, as he started playing Dawn of Sorrow today. Okay, he thought the name was lame, so he'd probably be annoyed if he read this. I guess we'll see if he actually reads my blog.

I haven't mentioned Lunar Knights, which I started playing. It's good. I mean, it's a good game. If you need a top down Zeldaish but more combat than puzzles game, then it'll do fine. But I dunno. It's just so... weird. The menus make so little sense. I have to switch between pages with L and R, but they're in a list that goes up and down...? I dunno. I'll keep playing during not-at-the-computer gaming time, and I'll give a full report later.

Also, my predictions were correct. Look at all that twittering I've been doing! See the box over there? Man! I tried to Liveblog Twitter Hardcore Awesome Wednesdays tonight. There's like... a list of my wins and loses (mostly loses) and the tracks I raced... I should have kept track of in-game leaderboard points, though... oh well, I'll do that next time.
But yeah, I'm Twittering like crazy. We'll see if it dies down, but for now, if you look over there, you'll likely see exactly what I'm doing! It'll be all amazing and shit!

Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...

Posted by poetfox at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2007

I can tell already I'm going to become a Twitter junkie.

Portrait of Ruin = Beaten. I dunno what everyone on Talking Time was talking about when they were all "Oh, the last boss battle is amazing!" I didn't find it any better than any other. I mean, the stairs up to the battle was like the stairs during the Richter battle in Symphony...? Maybe it was just like some other battle? But yeah. It was fun.

Now I'm a little ways into Lunar Knights. It's weird. I'm not used to being able to save anywhere. But it's pretty nice. Hopefully it doesn't get ass hard and turns me off, but I'm enjoying the bit I've played. I thought I'd like using Django and his guns better, but I found that shitty, and wanna go back to sword guy... but eh, we'll see.

TWiT has talked too much about twitter, and now I'm going to figure it out and probably put something in the side bar there, because I like the idea of having specific things that I am doing on the site for people to see. We'll see how it works.

Hmm, it looks pretty nice. Do you like the purple? Now that it has that up there, though, I feel like I should change the Google Calendar banner... eh, maybe later.

Posted by poetfox at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2007

My First Oekaki

So Parish instealled an Oekaki board for whatever reason. So, I dunno, I started a conversation about how retarded Jonathan's attack animations were in Portrait of Ruin (Part of "The March of Vampires," an amazing Vampire-based game event that I'm apparently a part of and invented), and in true Talking Time fashion, the conversation quickly got diverted to that of kicking over sandcastles. So I decided to try this new Oekaki board, having no drawing skills whatsoever, and I doodled a picture of Jonathan Morris kicking a Sandcastle.
I then woke up this morning, and someone had copied and then fiddled with my picture. Totally awesome.

Woah, look, Symphony of the Night on XBLA next Wednesday. What did I tell you? "The March of Vampires."

Well, I suppose it's about time for me to have platelets removed from my body, and watch many an episode of The Office.

Posted by poetfox at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2007

Mankind Ill Needs A Savior Such As Me.

Mmm, so people are wanting to play the TMNT Arcade game for Hardcore Awesome Wednesday... okay, I can see that. I might get in on that. Yes... yes... Oooh, they have a playable Viva Pinata demo? Sweet. About time.

Mama posted a new comic of me and Brer. It turned out AMAZING. Totally awesome. If you're into such things, I suggest you go take a look.

So I gave a nice presentation on Ethics last night, and it went pretty damn well, I think. There were technical issues, but the instructorguy said it wasn't a big deal, so I shall assume it wasn't a big deal! It wasn't in the part I prepared anyway. I mostly just prepared discussion, and that went well, even if we went off on a huge tangent via the question "What does something 2000 times sweeter than sugar taste like? And how can you determine that number?" These are very good questions raised by the case study, but not really ethical in nature.

What else is going on... oh yes, work hates me, They had scheduled me to work a double shift on my birthday. So I'd get maybe like 2 hours of birthday, and then it would be work. Fuck that. I wrote them a note telling them I wasn't doing the truck shift. Polite but Firm was my motto when writing it. I'll still work the Ad Set. I was planning on it, since I saw we had one. But if I work that truck, I'll be cranky, and I won't be able to go out to eat with my grandparents. So... yes. Stay tuned to see what me putting my foot down on that one causes.

Two more bosses and I'm done with Dawn of Sorrow, and get to move on to Portrait of Ruin. I found that, if I draw the little magic seals quickly and sloppily, it always recognizes them, whereas if I try to draw them exactly, it tells me I fucked up. I'm confused, but at least I'm hitting them on the first try now.

Okay, better clean up so I can go to lunch...

Posted by poetfox at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2007

'sup my young parsons! I too am so on the go that I eat my yogurt from a tube!

I'm playing Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. Everything you've heard is true, if what you've heard is that it's a great game, only held back by their attempts to use the touch screen, which suck and are annoying. But yeah, I'm blazing through it. I'm kinda suprised. Apparently, once I hit a certain level-point, so as to have a decent buffer of HP, I'm not TOO terrible at Castlevanias. I hope that this will carry over to Portrait of Ruin, which I hear is alright, but not as good because of regoing through areas multiple times. Oh well. I'll kick ass anyway.

What else... I saw 300. It has fighting, stabbing, decapatation, and breasts. So, you know, it like... filled all the action movie food groups. Or something. It was exactly what I thought it would be. If you like action movies, you will probably like it.

You know, I thought of a good title for the whole "Tailrazor" story/world that has been kicking around in my head. How's this for a title: "Role-Playing." It invokes the video-gamey themes of the story, and also ties into Tailrazor's character pretty well.
I listened driving to and from class the end of Mur Lafferty's second season of her little story called Heaven. (I stand by my suggestion for the title, "Endings." It works on many levels.) It made me think about her whole process. She started the thing just to screw around. She never had a really defined plan, she made random decisions as it suited her and didn't worry about it, and now she has a novel-length work and it was pretty good. I should do that. I should just start a tale in a wide open world like that, give myself a deadline of sorts, be it weekly or biweekly or whatever, and just DO IT. Not worry about how this or that sounds, or if that ties into this... just do it. Role-playing fits perfectly for that role, honestly. It's a defined in my head, but open-ended world. I have ideas for over-reaching plots (the relationship between her and Grace, the whole "Euphoria" issue... yeah), but not for individual stories. I should do it. Maybe podcast it too, since that's my inspiration. That way I can put boss battle music behind the fight scenes, which would be nice... I had also developed all this for my nevergonnahappen Flash Games site idea, Sapphire City Games, as sort of an episodic string of homages to various games (One episode, all the battles would look like Final Fantasy, another, Mario and Luigi, another, Final Fight...), but that has even less chance of happening, really... this, this could work. I should do it.

But you know how me and projects work out. Speaking of which, I have a presentation I need to do for tommorow.

Posted by poetfox at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2007

I played FFXII again today. My party is level 42.

So Worms is really sweet. I mean, it's Worms. There are times I wish I had, say... a Motolov Cocktail or a Napalm Strike... I mean, the Cluster Bomb is useless, the Cocktail would have been a better choice there... but overall, it really is what all the interviews claimed: Worms at its simplest and most fun. It was completely worth 10 bucks. Now, if they can get some Voice packs up there for like... sane prices... Like, I dunno, 2 dollars for ALL OF THEM, I will be happy.

There was a Game Developers Conference going on this week. I've been following the news, because I follow news... the one thing I got out of it all was wanting to hate Sony for making things I'd be interested in. LittleBigWorld looks AWESOME, and Playstation Home is just the kinda thing they needed to compete with both the Mii action and the Live action. Really, that just sucks for me. I don't want to feel like I should have all three systems this generation. I really don't... we'll see what happens, though.
Other than Sony stuff, apparently Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is going to have multiplayer Versus, and it actually sounds pretty fun... and Super Paper Mario looks as cool as I was hoping, so I can't wait to play that... and... that's about it? Sony stole the show, most definately. Oh, Mass Effect is going to be awesome. But I already knew that. I'm glad, though, instead of going towards the Light Side or the Dark Side, you're basically either Polite or an Asshole, but you're still good either way. If you're Polite, you're trying to win people over with conversation, outthinking, things like that to get the information you need. If you're an Asshole, you just punch them in the face. Heh.

Also, in news that is HUGE, at least to me, apparently Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a boy in the original Japanese. I can't blame the people who localized the game one bit for changing that, since it would have caused a lot of grief for Nintendo for something that isn't important to them. The whole English script for the game is amazingly fun and effective anyway, I can't help but love it. But damn, I just like her (him?) even more now. Thank you, Retronauts, for telling me this.

I sorta sent my mom an e-mail saying "I wanna Wii for my birthday!" And then I saw Wiis at Toys R Us, and went "Holy crap, Mom! Wiis at Toys R Us!" I'm so sad, really. But I just... I don't know... I think we both know she doesn't understand what I like... so I feel like I should tell her... I didn't include Cooking Mama: Cook Off on the list of games I wouldn't mind having alongside it, which was an error on my part (I only put Wario Ware: Smooth Moves on there, which is great too, of course)... although that games list wasn't as much supposed to be for her as maybe potentially for Grandma... since, you know, Wiis are not cheap. Well, okay, compared to PS3s, maybe.

But man... almost 23... it's not that I'm old... I mean, I sometimes feel that way, but I know I have many, probably totally sweet years ahead of me... it's just... looking at how little I've progressed in the things I feel I need to be doing. I'm not any closer to really being me... I know there's stuff I could be doing, even with my current parental situation, but I don't, because it just reminds me of said situation... I don't know... I cruise along, trying to hit that sweet spot of accomplishing things and keeping myself from falling apart by distracting myself, and I just... feel the need to distract myself more than I think a person should. I don't know. It's depressing. I should stop talking about that.
How about a positive, then? At least, this past year, I've thought of something I can do for a living with my degree that will fit me. My copyediting class is pretty sweet, and the work is right up my alley. It's something I could do every day, I think. It's the first time I've really had a career goal, so that has to be a good thing, right? I've also done a lot better at school. I'm slipping under the bar I set last semester in this current one, but it's certianly a whole lot higher than before last semester as well. There's some things of note I did, yes? Maybe?

I'm probably going to see the 300 tommorow. I'll let you know if it really was directed by a guy with three machine guns for a dick like Essner claims.

Posted by poetfox at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2007

Buying DS games, no matter how on sale, is no way to recoup money lost buying a new PS2.

In my defense, though, I went ahead and looked at the game release schedule for the coming month, and there is nothing I want, portablewise anyway, until Chocobo Tales in April. I can't think of any games I want for any other systems, either, besides Xbox Live Arcade games. And that's only... 20 more dollars at most. I SHOULD feel an influx of money without video games to splurge on, especially since Spring Break is soon, and they're going to work my ass off because I'm one of the few students not leaving... I can rebuild my funds... yeah, I just double-checked. No games should grab my attention outside of XBLA. Then again, I do want a Wii for my birthday, if I can swing it. But that shouldn't have much of an impact on my funds. Well... I guess it depends... Classic Controller... some points for some initial Virtual Console Purchases... I can hold off on additional Wii-motes because I can't think of a game that uses them all that I want... maybe one more for some Cooking Mama: Cook Off action, but that's it... Some sort of charger system, or some rechargable batteries... buying new systems is expensive.

I bet, if I ever took the time to calculate the amount of money I actually spend on video games, the numbers would scare the shit out of me.

You know what? One thing I should NOT do is buy Zelda. I know me. I know I won't beat it. I know I'll only get so far, past a couple of dungeons, and then Jonathan will play it all the time. I just shouldn't buy it.

I should probably inform someone that I'm hoping for a Wii or at least funds for securing a Wii for my birthday, though. I would like to have one before Super Paper Mario comes out.

In other news, HEY, LOOK OVER THERE!
(I hope you were distracted, because I am tired and couldn't think of any other news)

Posted by poetfox at 02:19 AM | Comments (0)