I've added some new photos to the gallery, starting with this one. Highlights include Coachella and the beginnings of Art 4D's 2004 tour. Supposedly there will be some more projects next week, and I will be hunting them down in order to snapshot them!!
I guess "Suck a Sage" wasn't weird enough:
2000's Front Mission 3 was a big disappointment. I was looking forward to trying this legendary strategy series that was making its American debut, and what little promotional hype existed was still impressive. After spending some time with the demo, I couldn't figure out how the preview trailer (featuring giant robot battles and one memorable scene with a colossal aircraft carrier overturning) translated to a game filled mostly by endless talking heads and inexplicably boring combat. As I am fond of saying, one of the demo's latter battles literally put me to sleep.
So, I'm relieved to say that, after completing a couple of the Front Mission 4 demo's preview episodes, I'm looking forward to playing more. It's hard to say what sets FM4 apart from its predecessor, besides the obvious change in consoles, but I'd say Square's legendary production values are definitely more evident. The first chapter of the demo begins by showing a troop of wanzer mechs storming some compound in futuristic Germany. The sequence is amazing. The visuals are detailed and crisp, amazingly rendered using the real-time engine. The direction is pretty dynamic throughout as well and reminded me of some of Xenosaga's early action scenes, especially when the segment ended with a wanzer flooring an enemy unit with a flying punch. The sound effects remained sharp in and out of the cinematic sequences and contributed a good amount of punch to the wanzers' attacks. (No pun intended, lol.) Story sequences were saved from the monotony of Front Mission 3's endless dialogue by featuring some competent voice actors and, as a plus, it sounds like half of the cast will be sporting some sort of European accent.
The only drawback to the game I can see, based on the demo, is that the combat sequences don't offer a lot of variety. In games like Final Fantasy Tactics your party members usually each have their own job, which in turn has one or two sets of unique abilities. With FM4, at least with the battle I played, my three characters mostly just carried around two or three types of guns. I guess that's realistic, but hopefully later in the game each wanzer will become a little more specialized.
I'll try out the remaining two-thirds of the demo later this week.
This is the most ridiculous thing ever. Whenever I cross paths with daytime talk shows, no matter how tangentally, I wonder if maybe there is this alternate dimension of crazy people that spills exclusively into these shows. I also fear what might happen if this dimension eventually manages to claim some position where it can do some real harm, instead of just terrorizing some poor guy's blog. The thing that most amazes me about this is the incredible volume of responses, mainly because I couldn't even find the page on several search engines. How did they all single out this guy to begin with?
Incidentally, my favorite comments:
How does one get "BOLRN?" Is that an IKEA desk or something?
MY WIFE IRENA CHEATED ON ME WITH AN OLD FRIEND AND THEY HAD A BABY TOGETHER WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE. WORSE STILL, THEIR BABY IS THE CHOSEN ONE WHO CAN REVEAL THE MEANING TO THE ROMBALDI ARTIFACTS.
I would like to see a Hollywood blockbuster that somehow revolves around a guy, possibly Colin Farrell, at a soda fountain filling up his cup and then having to wait around for a few seconds for the foam to subside so he can fill it up the rest of the way.
My phone just let me know that it's getting pressed for memory, so I went through the message archive to see what I could clear out. Here are a few of the random saved quotes and conversation snippets I found:
I think this is from my digital painting class:
<Luke> It makes me think of a brick, because, you know, a brick is kind of soft.
<student> What, like when you touch it, but not when it flies at your head?
"Word up, homie dog. ... What? Oh, it's home dog, isn't it." - random Morgan
"Now I see your Utopia is more of a Fruitopia"
Noah, describing after-effects of one of Cluck U's higher-end sauces:
"It's like a miniature man slapping you constantly."
"The Pagan Advantage" - essay title I oversaw in one of the labs
"King Leopold: The Master of Genocide" - essay title from one of my fellow black studies 5 classmates (this is dated May 23, 2003)
It's only appropriate that Satan is probably rolling snowballs in Hell at this very moment, because it'll give him ample practice for the impending Stateside invasion of this game. Word on teh stret is it will be out before the year end, and while that may sound far away, it's definitely sooner than never, which is when I had previously marked down the release on my calendar.
It seems that I've once again managed to dodge the need to mod my PS2. Just wait until Namco announces Katamari Card Fighter Freaks next year, haHA!
I thought even though I've had this bread for several weeks it might still be good but when I reached into the bag something lunged out and grabbed me and agh the pain and oh it's terrible so much blood everywhere all over the kitchen all I wanted was a midnight sandwich and now there's no way to stop it oh god what am i going to do now fkdlbjskf khkjjllkklls;;adsd;' m,.';'
I decided the current poll is not up to my lofty standards, so later tonight I will change it. In the meantime, please consider the following images of the Mr. Defense Secretary, because they will be involved:
 A |  B |
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Re: Penny Arcade's Omegathon tournament, to be held at the Penny Arcade Expo.
It sounds like the gaming triathlon (hexathlon?), with a pretty wacky range of events. I couldn't help grinning when I saw DOOM up there as the penultimate round. I'm hoping the final will be something like who can stomp the other player the most in the original Mario Bros., or get the highest score in straight-up Tetris, or... dare I say it... IKARUGA.
Yesterday I managed to catch a free advance screening of Van Helsing put on by Santa Barbara's KJEE radio station. I didn't go in with the highest expectations, which is probably for the best: Van Helsing is not a good movie.
If I had to guess, I'd say there are three major reasons why people would go see this movie. The first is for the monsters, of which there are plenty. Monsters, check.
The second would be the action scenes. Van Helsing's skirmishes are generally poorly-directed and aren't very remarkable at all. About 90% of them consist of airborne objects crashing into things. Said objects and things are also usually obvious CG constructions. In particular, Mr. Hyde sticks out like Shrek's green thumb.
The last and possibly greatest draw to see Van Helsing is the promise of seeing Wolverine going all Simon Belmont on a bunch of fools. This is what I was looking forward to the most, so I was disappointed when Van Helsing turned out to be not only a pretty boring vampire killer, but a mediocre one at that. Van Helsing spends more time getting beaten around than he does dealing out his crucifix boomerangs. Even after whipping out his cutting-edge gatling crossbow (much touted by his goofy friar sidekick, who, as it turns out, is played by Faramir), he peppers an entire village with bolts trying to shoot down a trio of Dracula's marauding brides. Of course, Van Helsing's performance may have just been undermined by the showing of the Bourne Supremacy trailer, which, aside from having an awesome title, stars world-class assassinator, Matt Damon.
Van Helsing's script and dialogue also disappointed and contained just about every other cliché for good measure. At least it seemed that Richard Roxburgh had a great time playing an over-the-top Count Dracula. He ended up being one of the most memorable characters, even if he did inexplicably break into his crazy vampire roar a bit too often. The soundtrack was an unusual mix of a pulsing, Zimmer-esque drum beat and an acoustic guitar and may be worth a listen, although now that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is over, I'm hoping they pass some law preventing the further use of choirs.
Despite all its shortcomings, Van Helsing managed to contain the audience through most of the movie. It was only fitting, though, when during the big, emotional final scene, the entire theater broke out in laughter. It's too bad this wasn't just a test screening so they could go back and change that and maybe retouch the effects a bit, but it looks like audiences will all be chuckling on their way out of theaters this Friday.
So when is X3 coming out?
For the last hour or so I've been editing a stack of film review for my writing class, and it's really getting me down. I can't decide exactly what it is about it that bugs me so much, but anything I settled on to complain about would inevitably result in some commentary on the aptitude level of university students, so I'm just going to skip right to it and say this: Do they still teach spelling and grammar in schools???????????? Or were those just sort of phased out and nobody's let me know?
Actually, there might be something subconsciously stopping me from further criticizing these reviews, and it probably has something to do with how before I started writing this, I was about to tell you what I thought of the movie VAN HELSING !!! But I'll save that for later.
Bonus trivia: Discarded title for this entry: "Economy of comma."
