The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Sunday, August 31, 2003 »
I thought The Fighting Temptations had something really cool going on with their movie poster, but then this movie went and gave them the one-up. Fantastic!
Silent Hill moment
Saturday, August 30, 2003 »
So I was just walking through this mall, right. It's made entirely out of bloodstained canvas and iron grating, but that's to be expected. Anyway, as I enter a room I'm greeted with this horrible screeching sound. Oh great, another horrible creature come to kill me, I think. Then I realize it's just coming from a giant, bony-looking fan on the left wall. That's quite a relief, since the previous room was filled with tubemonsters and mummified dogs. Then the fan crawls up on the ceiling and starts making its way over toward me. Ha ha! Oh well, it's good to be hopeful.
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The Ballad of Ryan Grant
Friday, August 29, 2003 »
For now I am crediting William with this, as it was in his profile:
(To the tune of Garth Brooks' "Rodeo")
His eyes are cold and restless
His wounds have almost healed
And she'd give half of Texas
Just to change the way he feels
She knows his love's in Azeroth
She knows he's gonna go
Well it ain't no woman flesh or cloth
It's that damned old Warcraft 3
Well it's trolls and blood
Hippogriffs and mud
It's the Roar of a claw druid
It's the plans in his mind
The gold in the mine
He'll take the next go 'round
It's boots of speed
It's night-elf trees
It's creeps and a Hero
It's the undead campaign
And the joy and the pain
And they call the thing Warcraft 3
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Silent Hill 3
Friday, August 29, 2003 »
I did five to six more hours of work with Movable Type today, and I think the site is now about 99% ready to go. It's quite exciting. In celebration I decided to start on Silent Hill 3.
This was a bad idea.
Also, milon convincing me to play it using my new speakers and subwoofer, and turning out all the lights. Those were also bad ideas. Bad, bad, bad, bad.
So, I am happy to say that I am already enjoying Silent Hill 3 immensely more than 2. I think I may have spoiled the SH2 experience by playing it in my well-lit dorm room, probably with Tobin typing away at something in the background. I also started it on easy mode, figuring that by the time I had beat it several times (each time graduating to the next level), I would have a great big pickup modifier and enough bullets to blast away any nursemonsters that looked at me the wrong way. On the other hand, I'm starting the third installment on hard combat difficulty, and it's been terrifying. Even those mummified, fork-faced dogs mean business.
I played about half an hour before having to turn it off. I'm looking forward to returning, but for now I think I'm going to go cry under the covers.
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The mind killer
Thursday, August 28, 2003 »
The plan for tonight:
- buy some Rolos
- Play SILENT HILL 3 in darkness
I hope I'm alive tomorrow.
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Productive, sort of
Wednesday, August 27, 2003 »
Here is what I did today:
- started Movable Type archiving
- went to dinner
- finished Movable Type archiving
I would estimate these tasks took around twelve hours.
I also took a shower. I guess that could be on the list.
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More Monopoly
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 »
I added some new photos.
Just to elaborate, we were playing Monopoly with this rule that people had to demand their rent payments due before the end of the turn in which the player landed on the property. Basically, if you weren't paying attention, you stood to lose a lot of money. Naturally, this led to much hilarity, including the side of the table on which Nathan, myself, and William were seated passing the dice around rather quickly after moving to avoid rent, and everyone generally acting obnoxious and rubbing their escaped rent payments in other players' faces. Needless to say, this is an excellent rule.
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While playing Monopoly
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 »
<Nathan> Hey motherfucker, gimme my money!
<Ken> It's not your money. It's my money. So fuck you!
Such a hostile game.
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Die, monster! You don't belong in this world!
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 »
You'll notice that I mentioned Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance yesterday. Well, here's a bit of backstory detailing my experience with this game before actually playing it.
Although I always assumed since its release that I'd eventually purchase and play this game, I think I can pin down the decision to go out and get it to sometime in June, when I was approached by Ken and Phil about putting together a Castlevania-style game for the Gameboy Advance. (If you'd like to know where that project went, this should give you some idea.) I was partially hoping to garner some ideas from the game, but mostly I wanted a semi-legitimate excuse to go out and buy it.
It was shortly following that decision when I realized that the game was near impossible to locate in good condition. For some reason it had already left most stores, including online retailers. As luck would have it, a brand new copy appeared on the indispensable eBay, and I quickly snapped it up.
Then I waited.
Many weeks later, the game had still not arrived. After several attempts to get in touch with the seller via both email and phone, I accepted it as the first time I had gotten burned on eBay. I eventually found out that the Electronics Boutique down in Santa Barbara had a copy on hand, and I purchased that.
Tangent: I actually discovered, when I arrived home and turned on the game, that there was already someone else's save file on it. Having been told it was a brand new copy, I returned to the store the next day, a bit confused. Apparently at EB they will actually repackage a game down to the shrink wrap if it is returned quickly enough? They say they only accept returns of new games if the buyer was "extremely unsatisfied." Still, it's a pretty messed up practice. With disc games it's not as much of a problem that you might get a used game in disguise because of the all-important SILVER STICKER, but with Gameboy games there's not much stopping them from going crazy with it. Except for the battery back up, HA H AHA HA HAH AHA!! Anyway, I exchanged that copy with another unused one, and was on my way.
So, I've been playing this game for several days now and am now back at my house, when what should arrive in the mail but the old copy of Harmony that I ordered weeks ago. Now, I have mixed feeling about this. On one hand, I did not throw my money into the toilet. On the other, I have an extraneous copy of a game that sells for ridiculous amounts of money on eBay in complete condition.
.........................
I will let you know how much it goes for.
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Where the sunbeams end and the starlight begins
Monday, August 25, 2003 »
My first full day back home and I devoted much of it to dumb Movable Type. Actually, not even that. The majority of the time I used rigging up a new links page setup. It works quite nicely I think. It, along with Movable Type and all the other enhancements I'm working on, will all debut with the new site, once I hammer the remaining bits of MT together. I've actually begun to think that I may never get absolutely all of it configured the way I want; I'll just reach the point where I feel the clump-in-progress is passable to the public, and then I'll shove it online and immediately return to work managing the countless templates. Oh well. It ensures that I'll still have a hobby when I'm retired and all art can be handled through Photoshop layer effects and the only new games out on the market are Tomb Raider MCLXVII and Dead or Alive Xtreme Taffy-Pulling.
On something of a tangent, I'd really like to start playing Silent Hill 3, but I'm currently making my way through Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. The earlier Circle of the Moon has it beat as far as difficulty, music (not sure what happened here), and the original and wildly useful DSS system, however Harmony does feel a lot more like the legendary Symphony of the Night, just through minor gameplay additions and graphical references, and on top of all that, the castle is huge. IT IS ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS. At first I suspected the game might be on the short side, but now I'm actually a little scared of how long it'll end up taking.
These new speakers are terrific.
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The fight is all
Saturday, August 23, 2003 »
As the award ceremony begins, the crowd can be heard whispering...
"Where is the champion? Where is Ryu?"
Where is Ryu as his admirers chant his name? Already seeking the next challenge, ceremony means nothing to him. The fight is all.
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SSBM
Saturday, August 23, 2003 »
<Morgan> Roy is Latin for "king."
<me> It is?
<Morgan> No.
<Morgan> It's probably Latin for "Marth."
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Woo party yeah
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 »
Despite not having all of MT's kinks worked out, I'm going to try the updating things anyway, since I don't have access to my main site and have things I want to say.
Things, mainly about the G4 Network. In case you don't know, this is a [relatively] new television network that features videogame-related programming. Anyway, this all began with an article over on Gamespot this week, which mentioned that the G4 Network had recently held an awards ceremony honoring this year's achievements in gaming -- a sort of videogame Academy Awards. Gamespot also mentioned that they were showing reruns of the event almost constantly because of their chronic lack of other programming. So anyway, I went downstairs and it turns out we do get G4 and, lo and behold, they are showing their awards ceremony. After a short Metroid Prime montage, they announced the winner of the "best story" category: Kingdom Hearts. After a prerecorded thank-you from an incredibly unenthusiastic Haley Joel Osment (the voice of one of the characters), they announced that there would now be a special presentation put on by a group of fans. This turned out to be a lip-synched reenactment of some scene from the game, by a bunch of fans in costume and a lot of hair gel. I assume this is close to every anime-cosplayer-type's wet dream, although it was probably the most painful thing in recent memory that I've had to watch. At that point I decided it wasn't necessary to watch the rest of the ceremony, and that the G4 Network was definitely earning its laughable reputation.
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Are you a hypnotist??
Saturday, August 16, 2003 »
I just finished Xenosaga and here is my one-word review of the ending: OOOOOGGHHHHHHHHHHHH. (Hopefully I will manage a longer review later.) I also just finished reading a bunch of the plot-related documents over at GameFAQs and I realized two things: 1) There are approximately 1000000000000000 more literary/mythological/religious references in the game than I would have guessed, and 2) Apparently I was asleep through half the plot, because I swear some of the guide authors were mentioning backstory scenes that I had no memory of at all. How unfortunate. I could definitely be tempted to replay it, though.
In other news, developer Monolith Soft mentioned plans for a novelization and animated version of the series. OH YES.
Now all that remains is the wait for Episode II.....................................................
Also, re: Shion, Episode II: possibly the best costume design in a game since um, some time.
Also happened today: I toyed around with Movable Type for no less than six hours. Although I can already tell it will have a huge, positive effect on this page, it is quite a lot more work than I imagined.
Anyway, it's been quite a strenuous few days of Web designing. Time to take a week off!
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rofl disaster
Friday, August 15, 2003 »
Plan for this evening: Hack Moveable Type into submission.
Time allowing: Hack Xenosaga into submission.
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title
Thursday, August 14, 2003 »
LOL, East Coast! How can you use the Force without a hand!
This is the best thing to come out of the ridiculous recall election so far. Thank you, San Jose Mercury.
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May you be reborn again anew!
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 »
Last night I was up till around 6 AM because I was sending Aniras MP3s for his radio show. Mysteriously I still managed to get up at 11. I cannot overstate how crazy that is. Consequently, it is about 2 AM now, and it feels like my eyes are about to combust. So, let it be known that tonight I am actually going to sleep before 4.
Also happened today: Mr. Yasu was looking for a logo redesign for his site, and I ended up redrawing the title logo and The House itself. Go take a look.
I am also extremely close to finishing Xenosaga. Given that Monolith Software has five more episodes of leeway for wrapping up story threads and that Episode II is still without a release date, I don't think it's going to be the world event that most RPG endings usually are, but I'm looking forward to it. Shion is ready to get her Rain Blade on.
Seriously, they are going to combust.
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Radio... What's happening with that radio?
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 »
I was just talking with milon for a bit about the Silent Hill series, and I ended up rewatching all the old video clips I captured from the original... I thought I'd just post one in case you've never seen it, because I really enjoy this one. Here it is. I don't think it ever had a title, but basically it is protagonist (and my hero ♥) Harry Mason going at it with a chainsaw on a doctormonster, with an alternate soundtrack added by me. And, yeah, I should mention that Silent Hill is rated M ("for mature!") so it is sort of graphic.
That's all I have to say about that.
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OH IT IS SO LATE
Tuesday, August 12, 2003 »
Advice: If you happen to be at In-N-Out Burger just before closing and the clerk asks you if you want all the fries, DO NOT SAY YES HE WILL GIVE YOU ALL OF THE FRIES IT WILL BE A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF FRIES SO MANY FRIES.
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SPIDER-MAN!!!!!!!!
Sunday, August 10, 2003 »
The Italian Job is like........................
.....................................
So insane. It's sort of like Ocean's Eleven (a great movie) in that there is a huge, meticulously planned heist, but with the excessive unbelievability of Bad Boys II. For instance, in one scene Mark Wahlberg is trying to drive his turbo-powered Mini Cooper out of a tiny dead end, and then in flies Edward Norton. In a helicopter. They also take control of Los Angeles' entire traffic system. Ridiculous.
Also, YOU'LL NEVER SHUT DOWN THE REAL NAPSTER!!
~ I n t e r m i s s i o n ~
<Ken> When you apply at In-N-Out you have to pick from four character classes.
<me> I'll be the elf.
<Noah> I'll be the short, fat guy.
<Ken> I'll be the guy who spills ketchup all over the trash can.
<me> That is actually a fifth, hidden character class.
<Noah> I unlocked it.
~ * ~
If you're interested in something a little less insane than The Italian Job, you could go see Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, which I went to go see on Saturday with visiting They Might Be Giants aficionado, Morgan. This is a must-see for anyone who considers themselves a fan. Lots of great interviews, "behind-the-scenes" clips and concert performances. Non-fans' mileage may vary. It was definitely worth my ticket money and having to endure the horrible, horrible theater muzak, though.
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Matt Damon is so good at assassination
Sunday, August 10, 2003 »
Currently the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez epic, Gigli, is actually #1 on the IMDb's Bottom 100 Films. Just in case that changes, here is a shot for your records.
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Shadow Hearts II
Sunday, August 10, 2003 »
New teaser commercial. It's criminally short, but I haven't been this excited by a trailer since Vagrant Story. The soundtrack sounds a lot like more Yoshitaka Hirota. Hooray.
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Afro DDR lesbians
Saturday, August 9, 2003 »
Golfland report::::
SVC Chaos - WHOOOO. This seems very promising. It is a return to 1-on-1 round system fighting instead of the team-based fights from King of Fighters and sister-series CvS. The graphics looked very nice and crisp on the huge monitor, although it looks like many of the SNK sprites are pulled straight from KOF. I played as Kyo and the controls seemed a little clunky and unresponsive, but it may have been because I rarely get to play SNK games with a joystick. His R.E.D. Kick moved slightly differently, and he has the old run-and-grab special back. Unfortunately a group of arcade natives appeared and conquered the machine, so I didn't get to try out any more characters or learn the new systems involved. Hrr.
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - It was nice to see an SF3 machine for the first time in a long while. I tried out Sean (mostly typical Ryu clone), Twelve (weird), and Remy, who shall henceforth be known as EMO GUILE.
Guilty Gear XX - I haven't had the time or interest to learn this game, but the graphics (as usual with the series) looked amazing on the monitor they had set up. Extremely sharp.
The King of Fighters 2002 - Exciting!!! Kyo and Vanessa handled smoothly, although Vanessa now has a lot more voice clips, some of which are obnoxious. Also where is G-MANTLE!
Other games included: Time Crisis 3, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, Mark of the Wolves, Guitar Freaks, Silent Scope EX, some crazy thing that played about 30 old Capcom games, and a 360° virtual reality artillery turret game which was pretty cool. Basically, Golfland has everything that's missing from Nickel City. (The fighters were only one token each, as well.)
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I'm an IDIOT
Friday, August 8, 2003 »
I went to Fry's without intending to buy anything, just like most of the times I go there, except I ended up purchasing not only Wario Ware but also Silent Hill 3, which I even told myself I wasn't going to buy for probably a month at least. Stupid Fry's and their limited time markdowns. Stupid, stupid!!!
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Sounds like a hit, guyz
Wednesday, August 6, 2003 »
From The Magic Box:
Rockstar Games announced Criminalympics for PlayStation 2, a brutal multiplayer party game which is labeled as Grand Theft Auto: The Party Game. The game takes place in Alcatraz, you play as one of the 8 criminals from around the world and participate a range of wacky and violent events, include
- Smash and Grab - shop looting, Liverpool-style
- Witness Removal - throw them off the roof, hammer-throw-style
- Cross Border Jump - flee to freedom in Mexico
- Drive-By - take out members of rival gangs
- Prison Wall Vault - make a dramatic break for freedom
- Break and Enter - clean out some swanky abodes
- Molotov Cocktails - does what it says on the tin, we'd imagine
- Swim With The Fishes - in the drink with concrete boots on
- Dump The Stiff - rid yourself of incriminating evidence
- Rooftop Pursuit - escape the long arm of the law in this hurdle-style event
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The Bourne Awesome Identity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, August 6, 2003 »
We just watched The Bourne Identity and I was pretty impressed by most of the action scenes and how cool of an assassin Matt Damon was, until the final shootout scene where he fires an upside-down gun left-handed and THEN HE DOES THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER IT IS SO CRAZY AHHHAHH CRAZY CRAZY
Also a guy runs out of a window. INSANE.
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Holy orders (be just or be dead)
Monday, August 4, 2003 »
Several weeks ago, I did not mention that Nathan recommended to me a movie, Wasabi, which I soon saw. It stars everyone's favorite tough-guy Frenchman, Jean Reno, and he basically goes around Japan and gets involved in one ridiculous predicament after another, including playing Dance Dance Revolution and, of course, eating huge gobs of wasabi. (I had a screencap of that, too, but it wasn't as interesting to look at.) I'm guessing the original French language version would be less jarring to watch, although it sounded a lot like they actually had Jean Reno doing his own voice for the dub. It's worth checking out. I mostly just wanted to post the screenshot, I guess.
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wtf
Saturday, August 2, 2003 »
From ABC News:
New York City, NY-based Salon Mexico is featuring a $45 10-inch-long burrito called "el burrito elegante" with prime filet mignon, rare huitlacoche ("Mexican truffles"), black truffles and other rare and expensive ingredients inside a folded corn tortilla. The burrito is served with truffle-infused salsa with chipotle chile.
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hooogh
Friday, August 1, 2003 »
Earlier tonight I told myself that I would finally be going to bed early, i.e. before 4 AM. One of these nights, I will tell myself that same thing, except it will not be a lie.
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Musically-inclined Xenosaga update
Friday, August 1, 2003 »
Why is Greensleeves in the game? Not that I am objecting.
The Song of Nephilim is some creepy crazies.
BUNNIE
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japanesejapanese
Friday, August 1, 2003 »
From Gamespot:
Namco has opened a new section on its Japanese site for a unique new game for the PlayStation 2 called Katamari Damashii. The game's title translates to "Soul of a Clump" in English. In Katamari Damashii, the player will use the two analog sticks to control a small character and roll an object through the game's field. As the object gets rolled around, it will continually become entangled with additional objects, turning into a clump of objects that gets bigger and bigger. As the clump gets bigger, the player can entangle even larger objects. Not much else is known about the game at this time.
Here are some screenshots.