09.21.07
Posted in Gaming
at 6:55 pm
Just an addendum, actually, and the single most heartbreaking news to come out of Tokyo Game Show so far. There will be new installments in two of Capcom’s most neglected series, the Rockman Dash (aka Mega Man Legends) and Breath of Fire sets. The BoF title is actually an “action RPG” remake of Breath 4, which I’ve not yet played (but heard so much about).
The downside? They’re for mobile phones. As in, “HA HA HA THEY WILL NEVER EVER COME TO THE UNITED STATES EVER EVER EVAR.”
Permalink
Posted in Site News
at 4:23 pm
Sorry, folks. I spent my prime blog-post-prepping time last night reading Brave Story. At least now I know for sure that it’s actually a fantasy book and not just a weird thriller. Anyway, probably going to continue doing that tonight/this weekend, so if you were expecting a lot of gaming news or more profound insights, uh… come back Monday? Yeah, by Monday the Tokyo Game Show will be over and I’ll have something to talk about.
If I can tear myself away long enough, I’ll try to detail that whole “Poketoberfest” thing from the end of yesterday’s post, too, but don’t count on it.
Permalink
09.20.07
Posted in Gaming, Rants, Site News, Writing
at 6:30 am
(EDIT: Corrected the timestamp. I blame the chamomile tea. I don’t know how, but I blame it anyway.)
Right, three long, drawn-out diatribes in a row, on a week that’s not an Essay Week, are far more than enough. I’m going to keep this one relatively short.
I’d been meaning to get a pair of prescription sunglasses for a long time, but only now have I really been able to do so. They’re almost a necessity in bright areas, and since I drive with the sun in my rear-view mirror both to and from work, they’re going to be downright required when winter comes and there’s snow glare to deal with. So, I now have them, and damn do they look good on me. I’ll get a picture up sometime when I’m feeling Bond-ish enough to do so.
Tuesday morning, I experienced another HomiciPod moment. “Flying Dreams” (theme to Secret of NIMH), followed by “Here’s To The Night”, followed by “J-E-N-O-V-A (Advent Children Version)”. On the plus side, that track did happen to come at a time when aggressive driving was called for, so… well, you know me, turn a disadvantage into an advantage, and all that.
I’ve been drinking tea again– it’s definitely a fall-to-spring thing for me, as a hot drink on an impossibly humid July morning just isn’t gonna work. As a result, I’ve found myself being a little more snobby about the tea that I drink… not to any real degree, but on the few occasions that I do go out these days, and I order tea, I tend to worry when it’s just a nondescript teabag and a half-full mug of still-boiling water. As you may have guessed, I’ve been burned before by the nas-tea. No, I’m not sorry for that pun.
Gamefly still isn’t reporting MySims as available at the time of this writing (but now that it’s posted, yes, it is available); I imagine if I send back one of my games this morning, probably Valkyrie Profile 2, it will arrive just barely in time to get it. I hate playing that stupid game– not VP2, mind you, which I haven’t even put into the PS2, but the “let’s send it back and watch the fourth game down the list get sent because there just happened to be a huge rush on the top 3 games”. Ah well. If it’s not, well, I did want to play through Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit anyway. (For the record: I put VP2 back because I don’t want to get into the series halfway through; as soon as I can safely reclaim my PSP– probably after January– I’ll do so, and then play through VP1, which I’ve held on to since LAST October.)
Finally, I picked up Brave Story, by Miyuki Miyabe, last night; it’s a safe bet to say that if I had not been completely exhausted, I would not have put it down. I dig it. The first two chapters are setting up the protagonist’s world; it has a very strong Harry Potter vibe, in that it’s a fantasy novel where the protagonist has roots in the real world, but I peeked ahead and saw a little bit of the fantasy, and am quite intrigued. (Mom: Prior to writing that book, Miyabe wrote thrillers and mysteries. You might want to check them out– I think “All She Was Worth” was the most notable one.)
Anyway: I promised some thoughts on the ending to Veronica Mars, and those are indeed forthcoming. Probably tonight or tomorrow. And, as we are approaching October, the weather is driving an itch into me; the same itch I felt in fall of 2000 at college, the same one I felt in fall of 2004 in Erie, and the same one I always feel in fall no matter where I am when the weather turns cooler and the air is scented with fallen leaves. Grab your bags, boys and girls, for a month’s vacation in Hoenn: we’re goin’ to Poketoberfest.
Permalink
09.19.07
Posted in Rants
at 4:32 am
I noticed that this week is the three-month mark for my little vegetarian experiment. At the outset, I’d stated that my initial planning was to take it only for two months, but that I was then inspired to go as long as I could. That remains true. I’ve dedicated myself quite well, and rediscovered a few foods I’d actually forgotten that I liked; and now, I’ve determined that the trial phase is hereby over. The transitional period is behind me. The change, barring a medical concern, is permanent.
It was a very simple event in the store Monday evening that convinced me that this is not just a passing thing. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
09.18.07
Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 4:47 am
(EDIT: I underestimated BBC America; Torchwood runs almost incessantly between now and Saturday, when the new episode runs. It’s set to TiVo until I catch up (probably tomorrow). Now, back to your regularly scheduled gaming rant…)
Picking up from yesterday, my mom was talking a little bit about when I was going to come back home for a visit, and if I would be willing to leave the Wii with her so she can beat me even worse in Wii Sports Bowling. I am not proud to admit this, but my mom was the first in our house to break 200 on that particular game. This also glosses over the fact that my mother, sweet as she is, also happens to be one of the better players of NES Pinball among my bloodline. Sadly, I won’t be leaving the machine in her hands anytime soon– or at all, actually; I fear for my pride– but it did raise an interesting point.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
09.17.07
Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 4:47 pm
I suppose that, in the interests of retaining my Gamer License, I need to talk a little bit about Halo 3. My sister, lovey as she is, asked me about what items might be on my Christmas list; I had no immediate concepts, so she ventured, “Halo 3?” I immediately said, “Uh, not quite.” Yeah, disregarding that my tastes run more towards MySims and the Virtual Console/XBLA stuff these days, the fact that she even mentioned the Fight what’s being Finished sort of made me pause.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in Site News
at 12:02 pm
(This entry was time-shifted because I wanted to keep the Halo 3 rant on top until tomorrow. I learned about this AFTER writing the H3 rant.)
The latest episode of the TMBG Podcast announced tour dates for the Johns’ upcoming fall/winter shows. Pittsburgh was announced as being scheduled for November 15th, 2007. I intend to be there.
Permalink
09.16.07
Posted in Rants, Site News
at 3:00 pm
So, the ending to Veronica Mars Season 1. I have a lot I want to say about it, but I need a little bit of clarification first– oh, and I feel somewhat vindicated that my attachment to the character of Mac gets rewarded later on (yes, I peeked at the cast list for Seasons 2 and 3, but only after watching the end, I swear). What I will say is that the show was, and is, fantastic, and I’m truly thankful for Pez’s bearing with my scoffing and chortling whenever he mentioned that the program he most desired to watch on television was about a high-school girl detective. I’m glad you understand, old friend. I still have to mock you because you voluntarily watched UPN/CW, mind, but I harbor no further doubts about your taste.
Which, not coincidentally, reminds me– when does Torchwood start airing in the US again? (EDIT: Last week. Damn.)
Permalink
09.15.07
Posted in Gaming
at 7:31 am
You know, one of the most interesting parts of the DS Pokemon games was always the potential offered by the Global Trade System (GTS), which opens up the trading of critters to be more than just among your local circle of friends– or, if you’re obsessed enough, among your own cartridges. It does pretty much exactly what it says– it allows trades over Nintendo WFC, so people from different parts of the world trade as if they were in the same room. For example, let’s say you were in Victoria, Australia and looking for an Unown; a guy (you may not know) in Alberta, Canada has him and wants your Pichu. Bam, done. 8,600 miles is a hell of a long way to throw a Pokeball, son.
I only know of this very, very long distance exchange because of the GTS monitoring site that Nintendo launched last night. (Be aware the site takes Flash 9, so you may need to upgrade.) Left idle, the site will replay trades that have happened over the last 24 hours– real-time trade monitoring is a bit much to ask, I guess, but this is still oddly fascinating. You see the Pokemon under trade, and watch their path as they traverse between their destinations over a 3D globe. (The effect is somewhat lessened when viewing on the Wii’s Opera browser– there’s a notice to “enjoy this site on your computer”, but you can still watch trades over a flat map.) The big draw, of course, is the trade data.
A ticker runs at the bottom of the site with advice on the most desired, most traded, and most popular Pokemon to come across the service. Over the last 24 hours, it seems evident that most people chose Piplup as their D/P starter– he’s the least wanted of the three. In any event, the ranking data becomes a great tool to use when you want to make a quick trade; I’ve been hesitant to use the GTS simply because I didn’t know if I had anything people wanted, but the popularity of Abra should not be underestimated, it seems (currently ranked 10th on the most wanted list). While it doesn’t alleviate the most obvious problem of the GTS– that is, you can’t trade for Pokemon you haven’t seen before, which makes my getting the Johto starters still a near impossibility– it does make targeted trades a bit easier. At current count, there are 83,000 Pokemon listed for trade. That number baffles me… there’s still 83,000 people playing?!
Although, I can’t really say that. Last night, on the way home, I stopped into a bookstore for a research tome (related to the short story ‘verse). I gravitated over to the manga, where I saw an 11-year-old boy (guessing on the age) poring over the D/P strategy guide, and the section on Mt. Coronet. He was just about to go after Palkia, and we chatted for a few moments. It was a remarkable moment, I suppose, to nobody but myself, but still the fact that it did happen gives me pause. It won’t end now, will it? I mean, the game is too far along, and too many people– myself included– have been playing for it to just end, right? It has done good; as cynical as you may be, it’s evident that it’s brought some people together. It makes our world a little smaller to know that someone in Germany took the time to grind a Machamp up to 70. Or that a Turkish Milotic is still as impressive a feat as a British one.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just being overly sentimental… but it does make one think, doesn’t it?
Permalink
09.14.07
Posted in Rants
at 8:08 pm
There wasn’t much traffic on the Parkway East coming home tonight, but I am firmly convinced that I only narrowly avoided death by sheer luck and will. Why? Because, as the title may imply, My iPod Is Trying To Kill Me (again). It started off by playing “Pain”, from Xenosaga; a sad song in its own right, and I tend to get pretty emotionally invested in certain bits of music. It then followed that up with “Rainbow Connection” and “I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon”, back-to-back. By the time Ernie was done singing, I was nearly completely broken down in tears.
Then the last battle track from Chrono Trigger came on, prefaced by Lavos’ scream. The four most terrifying seconds of sound ever produced by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
That was three hours ago, and my throat is still sore from my own panic attack.
Permalink
