Mass Effect: Commander Shepard Is Such A Jerk

This was too priceless not to post. One of my favorite games, Bioware's "Mass Effect" has the typical Bioware gameplay tactic of either being good or evil. This is Male Shepard being a dick. Hilarious!

Way to Go, Adult Swim

So, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim used to be the place to go for fabulous new anime in the States. It was a good way of previewing something (and its dub) to see if you liked it. They aired them at reasonable times and people like myself and my boyfriend and our friends could make a night of it.

It seems that has been kicked in the head nowadays. If Adult Swim gets new, interesting programming they always put it behind some Shounen Jump property at the latest possible hour. For instance, take their newest property that I was excited about seeing dubbed because the sub was a little hard for me to follow: Guardian of the Sacred Spirit. It's on Saturday nights at 1:30 E/P, 12:30 central. This isn't even techincally Saturday night anymore! WTF, Adult Swim!?

I have to wonder if they enjoy shooting themselves in the foot programming-wise and then complaining that no one watches it. Of course no one is watching--at that point in the night people are either getting laid, getting high, passed out in a drunken stupor, or asleep.

And then they show abominations like Family Guy every f&#%ing night for a full hour, if not more! GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Nerdy Update...

Tony got Dune the miniseries for cheap at Blockbuster the other day. We have started watching it. (It's the SciFi channel one from 2002.) It is completely awesome. I must now begin to read the books. But I'm enjoying the miniseries an awful lot...

Yay geekdom!

Too Human

So Tony rented Too Human at Blockbuster yesterday. We took it to the Xbox and, well...we found out the reviews were actually too kind instead of too harsh. After two hours of gameplay both of us were incredibly underwhelmed with Silicone Knights latest game. The graphics are definitely made for the last generation with bloom effects. Baldur (the main character and the one you control) is ugly (even though in legend he's a looker) but beautifully voiced by Crispin Freeman.

The gameplay is unintuitive. Complete bollocks. You basically mash the right analog stick to make stuff happen or twist it around. Very annoying. Trigger buttons are for your useless guns. The camera is fond of looking at the floor instead of enemies. Your companions are useless. During prompts to jump on enemies backs it then refuses to tell you what to do next, and button-mashing results in nothing. Tony finally got frustrated enough to let me have a go, and I randomly twisted the sticks until something happened. The first boss fight against Grndl (ha ha ha...) yielded the last straw as it was ridiculously unbalanced against you. When you "die" you get an unskippable cutscene of a Valkyrie reviving you and then you continue the boss fight. After two of these we were done. Also the retarded level trees, constant upgrades (literally, more time is spent deciding what weapons and equipment is better than actually playing the game) and useless character classes were just annoying. Thanks for nothing, Silicone Knights.

The game is a resounding "meh". Tony's mad he spent the eight bucks on it at Blockbuster, much less those poor bastards who were duped into buying it for the sixty dollars required. Pretty much just wishing Silicone Knights had abandoned this project for Eternal Darkness 2: Electric Bugaloo.

This is kinda for me...

I found a link to the translated light novels for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and wanted to post the link because I wasn't at my home computer (this way I can pick it up at a later time):
http://www.baka-tsuki.net/project/index.php?title=Suzumiya_Haruhi

You can click if you want. There are a few other series here as well.

Anime Trade

So last night my favorite patient came and we traded anime. I aquired This Beautiful Yet Ugly World along with a few other titles I can't remember off the top of my head. I ended up lending out not much anime (he's already seen everything I own now) except for Gotham Knight and now the two Hellboy animated movies. Which are awesome. I also borrowed a lot of OSTs to burn. Heeheeheehee...

Apparently Too Human isn't worth buying but may be good for a rent. And the search for awesome games to bury one's self into continues. Where oh where is the next Kingdom Hearts? Shouldn't they be done with making it by now? Or would it be on an entirely new engine? Probably, now that I think about it. Oh Square Enix...quit making actual Final Fantasy games and give the public what it desperately craves: more Disney.

Other game franchises I'd like more of you say? Okami would be a great start. Barely anyone played it as it came out at the end of the last generation but by God, that was a diamond among garbage. Just the graphics alone were worth the price. It was cell-shaded to look like Japanese wood prints and whimsical coloring. Restoring the earth instead of destroying it? Being a wolf goddess? The ability to bark at people and chase your own tail and dig random holes? Drawing your powers on the screen to change your environment or do battle with wind/water/fire/cutting/etc.? This was the most fun I'd ever had with my PS2. And the game worked on so many levels. Excellent characterization and gameplay with a unique plot. Sure the ordinary battles were a little repetative, but easily excusable. Even the loading screens were a mini-game! This was impossible not to love. More please.

Gotta get to work. More at a later date.

All in all...

All in all, while fighting games are indeed very fun, the best games are still those with fleshed out characters (and hopefully a plot to go with them). While Namco tries its best to give their fighting games a story (and as odd and confusing as they can get at times...), in the end no one is playing them for the story. The graphics and styles are a lot of fun, though. Soul Calibur IV is still the best fighting game around, though. And I do love the characters (especially couples: Hilde/Sigfried, Xianghua/Kilik, and Seong Mi-na/Yun-Seong).

I'm looking forward to Too Human. Tony's afraid he's psyched himself out and that he's not heard any early reviews. I kinda wanted to smack him for it, but he's so darn cute...

More Character Nonsense

So even Tony has discovered the joy of character creation on Soul Calibur IV. He normally hates that stuff unless it's pretty much essential to the game (like in Mass Effect). The Tower of Souls challenges get cheaper as it goes on, and regular characters just aren't getting the job done. So not only can you choose abilities for custom and pre-existing characters (once you level style) but clothes come with abilities. And so...Tony started liking dressing people up. Especially Kilik and Mitsurugi (they're his best characters).

I just have fun messing around with hair and colors. And clothes. I made Ivy wear pants! We're trying to unlock more stuff in the Tower (and with achievements) so that other characters have cool looking stuff.

In other gaming news, Too Human comes out this Tuesday. Tony's practically chomping at the bit for this one. I'm excited because of Crispin Freeman's sexy voice (and yay RPG!). And after this launches, maybe Silicone Knights will actually start on a sequel to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. If we're lucky.

Soul Calibur IV And Random Thoughts

So, I've had a chance to play Soul Calibur IV some more, and while I love it to itty-bitty pieces, I do have a problem with it. It's slight, but still annoying.

Pantie shots are rampant. I can deal with jiggly lower back problems with nipples poking through. Sometimes that is actually a plus, if only to watch the physics engine animate them as Taki is getting her tight ass kicked. That pantie shots annoy the hell out of me at times, though. Especially on characters I like.

I realize many of the female characters' costumes were re-done to make them sexier. Personally, I like my women sexy. But there's a difference between sexy and slutty, and where they toe the line with a few characters they go seriously overboard with others (Ivy, I'm looking at you). Seong Mi-Na got a particularly bad makeover with her second costume (skimpy undies with nothing to cover them), and where this costume could have shined to become bad ass, it's just ass now. Literally. Her moves are less effective now as well. She got shafted on the costume and the moveset. That's rough.

There is nothing sexy about slutty dressing. You tend to take them less seriously as characters. I mean, who goes out like that and tries to fight? Nobody. Flashing skin = sexy and seductive. Showing everything = incredibly trashy. And distracting.

This would be fine if the men had more shirtless costumes and tighter pants. Seriously. That'd make up for a lot of it. More makeovers like Yun-Seong!

And while I'm at, more romance in the story endings. Or more of an ending, really. That'd be good. Favorite one is Xianghua's. Sooooo cute. Also, I'd like a million dollars. Just sayin'. It'd really help me out.

Birthday Wish Can Come True

So my birthday came and went on the sixth and some was good and some was not. What was good was that my friend Joel was kind enough to give me something I'd been craving to see for a long time: Emma, A Victorian Romance. I couldn't find it anywhere in Best Buy for myself, and he somehow magicked a copy in the space of three days since I'd told him. He still won't tell me where he got it.

I'd just finished reading the manga a day earlier (seven volumes, same name, beautifully drawn and incredibly accurate) and eagerly popped in the first disc last night after getting tired of waiting for someone to watch with me (no one could so far--they all were working). It is wonderful. The pacing is slow (after all, there are only seven volumes--they have to make it last) but you never notice because it actually fits with the atmosphere and the times. Times were slower. Simple things meant more. The animation is wonderful (I don't remember the studio, but it's a small one I'd never heard of before) and the voice acting is great. Although I do actually find myself wondering what the dub would be like. For Emma, a dub actually makes sense. They're English. The voice talent for the sub is incredible, but I find that in my head William sounded a little more hesitant/clueless than his seiyuu portrays him as (he sounds confindent and manly which is also sexy, but doesn't match what I originally thought of the character). Emma herself is very kind and angelic, almost demure. That's pretty much how she's supposed to be, so it fits. She sounds older than I thought she should, but whatever.

Anyway, this is a great look into Victorian England in and of itself as the mangaka was obssessed with this period of history. Very lovingly rendered in both anime and manga with beautiful character designs and interesting characters this is definitely worth checking out. Especially if you like a bit of romance, you old softy you.

^_~

Six Degrees to...Star Wars. What Else?

So, in celebration of Soul Calibur IV and the retarded Star Wars characters found within I'm posting all the Darth Princess pictures I have. They make for nice backgrounds on a computer.







Really, I just felt like doing this.

A Taste of Soul Calibur IV

So, yesterday Tony got Soul Calibur IV and another Xbox controller and then we raced back to his place to pop it in. After a little confusion with the sync up of the new controller ("Why is the shiny new black one player two!? Here, you can be player two...") we sat down to immerse ourselves.

It. Was. Beautiful.

The graphics are stunning. Admittedly, nice stuff looks better on an HD tv, but *fangirl mode activated* ZOMG I WUV IT GIMME MORE *fangirl mode deactivated*. I literally almost salivated as I made Tony guinea pig story mode as Kilik (his best character). I had been obssessively looking for character pics on-line (Costume Get! was extremely helpful in aiding my fangirlism) for about six months now, but it was finally gratifying to see the character's alternates. I haven't seen all yet because we only played for two hours. So far I'm digging Tira's jester outfit (as well as her default), Talim is adorable (though her alternate is blonde for some strange reason, but hey, that's what the character editor is for...*evil cackle*), and Xianghua's costumes make up for her voice acting. And her cheapness. With which I totally owned Tony. That's okay though, he owned me when he was Kilik.

The control scheme is basically the same as on the PS2, but with the Xbox's bumper keys and triggers it makes pulling off some of the tougher moves easier. If you can remember what does what. The right-side buttons are the same (Y=A (upper attack), X=B(lower attack), A=Guard, B=Kick), the left analog stick is the 8-directions (moving in 3D, yay!). Right bumper is switch during the new tag-team mode (it's also in story-mode to save you in early stages) so that you can haul in a new character if the one you're using isn't working on your enemy. Left bumper is A+B+K+G. Right trigger seems to be a charge up, though of what I'm not sure (there's also a taunt that it does). Left trigger is A+B. Though if you're me, you basically hit A & B in any combination you can.

I'm dying to try out character creator and editing. So when I do I'll comment on that.

This game is worth the money AND the wait, so far. Of course, I'm a big fan of the series thus far, so I'm a bit biased. It's exciting, though. I almost couldn't sleep last night. I just love fighting games. Good for stress, y'know?