Monster Lobster

Some sort of lobster monster for...I dunno. I think sea creatures make interesting monsters due to how bizarre a lot of them look. Maybe that's why I lean in this direction so often.

This is probably something produced in Hellina's worst nightmares.

Maybe I'm A Moai

Nosepass was one of those Pokemon I really never cared for at first. But thanks to some light-hearted ridicule from my hetero life-mate Tof, I've come to associate myself with the little bugger. That's why, despite it not being one of my absolute favorites, I'll be having one of these guys following me through Soul Silver when it releases.

...We'll look like twins!!!

Game review (Quickie): Mass Effect 2

Never played the first one, so i prolly didn't get the full experience.

I gotta say, the game is visually delightful. Some moments really stood out for me on a visual level, like at the beginning of the game when your character goes back to get the pilot as the ship's been blown apart, you walk through a section where the top of the ship is gone and you can stare into other space, the dimension of it all, the ambiance, all the particles, a really impressive sight.

I should had taken a screenshot but it was the beginning of the game and i thought it would became standard later on. sadly, not quite. There were a few races that i didn't care for the designs of, especially the "blue ones" (the Asari), seems lazy and not really interesting. Humans looked like crap too.

However, i really like most of the other ones, especially the Quarian, the Turian and the Korgan, Legion the Geth was pretty cool looking too.

Although the game has a very realistic look, it manages to have a subtle style to it, maybe too subtle but it's there.

The gameplay feels a lil slow, but looking back, it's very solid and works well. Moving around towns can b annoying though cause as i mentioned, it's slow. I can apriciate realism in physics but i was getting really bored. can't b helped, RPGs are always slow paced i guess. still, way way better than Dragon age.

The plot was pretty good, it really kept me interested in the game, enabled character development and i enjoyed it, however, having not played the first, and this game certainly destined to have a sequel of it's own, I feel like i came in the middle of a movie and left before the end. When i beat the game it felt like the story was just gettin started really. Kinda sucks...

I can't really fault the developers for that, there's only so much plot u can cram into a game, and it's an effective strategy from a marketing point of view, but you really can't play just one game of this series. The perfect analogy would be that it's like only watching the 2nd "lord of the rings" movie.

You know, this is what it feels like really, watching a movie. except that the gameplay is filler scenes and u pick the course of the story.

I dunno if I'd even recommend this to myself, what i will recommend to anyone is: Cheat and max out your minerals/metals, because the planet scanning is a terrible idea, serves no real purpose besides forcing u to do a excruciatingly boring task between missions. Slows down the game (Story and action wise) to unacceptable levels.

I guess i "sort of want"

You know what? if you're patient and enjoy a good story, play it. If you have limited free time, maybe not a good choice.

House of Villians - Maleficent

More and more crap is piling on me emotionally everyday, and as such there will probably be a huge gap between this post and the next.

This is my rendition of Disney's Maleficent part of a pre-depression House of Villians series VN edition. well enjoy it.

I can't sleep

Levni Yilmaz gives us insomniacs something to relate to because goddamn it that's what I do.

Squall's Dead

Spoony posted on his site about a Final fantasy 8 theory that claims that Squall may have died When he was spear'd and that the rest of the game from that point on is all in his mind.

This is the site of the theory.

Personally, I enjoyed the read.

"Squall's Dead" discusses the possibility of Final Fantasy VIII's storyline covertly revolving around the death of its main character early on, a theory which - so far - appears to be undiscussed on the internets. We will attempt to explain the basis of the theory, and argue why it may be true. At the end of the article we concede that there is no real "proof", merely suggestions and hints. However, we hope this analysis will add meaning to the game for all players - perhaps refreshing its value over a decade since the game's release - and inspire a discussion as it did between us.

Although I'm quite certain it's not what was intended as the plot, it is a valid interpretation of the events of the game. In fact in my opinion it's giving the game a lil too much credit because that would had been a much better plot than the intended one.

The analysis that the spear of ice would had killed Squall seems very valid seeing as Ward (or whatever Laguna's friend's name was) was wounded in battle and lost his voice because of it. The game implies there is clearly a limit to what magic can do. Otherwise anyone could live forever and the world would b overpopulated, and we clearly see it's not the case.

I mean if magic solves anything why didn't anyone revive Laguna's loved one? Aeris' death in FF7 seems way more absurd that Squall's would and everyone just accepts that one.

People can argue that all the strange stuff you see after that point in the game are normal in a final fantasy game, but that still doesn't mean that it couldn't all just be all in Squall's mind.

Children card games

I get that Jimmy can't post often, but Zach has stuff that he could post and are way interesting than me yapping and just doesn't post it. But still, falls upon me, the emo guy that hasn't done shit for 2 weeks to come up with something to post about.

Anyway, if you can tell what this pic is about u're more of a nerd than you'd probably like to b:


I used to have Magic the gathering when i used windows 98, when i switched to XP it suddenly stopped working for me and i assumed the game just wouldn't run on XP. About a week ago i was browsing (the new?) home of the underdogs (there's 2 of them apparently), and they of course have a page about Magic the gathering and to my surprise, their page claimed that it runs on XP, what's more, they had a download for it.

So i got the files, installed, and damn, it works!

the interface and cards stretch to the desktop, which kinda sucks cause it's all huge. but it's pretty much like it was back in the day. Deck builder is broken and i couldn't get it to work so i just played with the preset decks, and played this game for 2 days almost non stop. Hope someone enjoys the game.

I'm ashamed to admit, I'm still playing RO most of the time though.

Reviewers Salad: which ones taste the best?

Today i was looking at the tracker stats of blog for the lulz, it's not something that i do often but sometimes there's curious things on it. For example, this blog has only had 2 visits ever on a PSP, both were on the same day, but one was in the USA and the other in Mexico.

I Know, boring shit.

I mostly check referrers though, the majority of people who come across this blog come from Zach's DA and FA pages, probably hoping to see doodles here he doesn't post elsewhere and couldn't care less about who the hell me and Jimmy are. Believe me i bug Zach to post stuff here but since nobody gives him feedback I'm pretty certain he thinks it's a waste of time.

Anyway...


As i said i was checking referals, and saw one from the forums from MugenGuild, "odd..." i thought to myself, "maybe it's someone that Jimmy knows?". Jimmy used to b into Mugen character making i think, very briefly though. So i check the topic and it's about Yahtzee and game reviewers in general, Asking people what they thought of Zero Punctuation and what other reviewers they liked.

I read on to find the post that mentions the blog, and this was it:

Iiiii have problems with Yahtzee.
I think I have even more problems with K-T0f (http://k-t0f.blogspot.com). (I don't wanna talk about 'em.)
8-Bit ROB is kinda neat (http://www.youtube.com/user/8BitROB).
Spooney's good.
I love Angry Joe (http://angryjoeshow.com/).
I also like The Game Heroes (http://www.thegameheroes.com/).
And I gotta show support for a group that lives in the same state as me (http://www.youtube.com/user/GameKnightsShow), and I, personally, think this group is neat.

Whoa, I got mentioned in that list Before freaking Spoony! Hell he decided to mention me before everyone except Yahtzee. I dunno who this Radda guy is but he kinda gave me a ego boost there. Sucks that he hates me and all, but he did give the blog advertisement (there's a slight visitor spike on that day).

I think it's fair to say if u don't like Yahtzee, you're not gonna like me cause I tend to always have the same opinion as he does on the games he reviewed that i did play. No i don't base my opinions on his, i'm just pessimist and objective as hell too. The thing is though, i don't see myself as a game reviewer, I just express my opinion on the game fully aware most people aren't like me and can actually enjoy stuff that aren't... er... good?

Best, Video, Ever.

Anyway I thought i'd give you guys a list of the reviewers i like to watch (not only gaming wise though), no particular order:

• The spoony experiement - I love this guy hands down, He's funny, creative, reviews all sorts of stuff and he's really comfortable talking to the camera. I think this last characteristic is what makes him so likable, it's like listening to a friend that's hanging out with you.
• Yahtzee - Short, Funny, to the point and i tend to agree almost always with him (there's only 1 game I've disagreed with him).
• Lord Kat - Kind of a Reviewer, it kinda counts i think. Mostly known for his "Until we Win" series which in the end is a review or an old game with tips on how to beat it. Most might not like him, but he's grown on me for some reason.
• The cinema snob - I don't think most people like this guy, but again, he grew on me. Reviews very very obscure and extremely bad movies. I just like his stuff.
  
• Linkara and The Nostalgia Critic from thatguywiththeglasses.com - I think almost Everyone knows these 2 by now, both are pretty funny and entertaining, NC mostly reviews Movies but does other stuff from time to time, and Linkara most does comic books. I personally like Linkara a lil more though. Spoony, Lord Kat and The Cinema Snob are also on thatguywiththeglasses.com but they have their own sites as well.

That's my personal list anyway. I know some people like Angry Joe, and i'm sure joe is a cool guy, seems like he is, but i just cannot stand him at all (1, because he looks EXACTLY like my cousin who pierced my foot with a farming instrument when i was 8. 2, because unlike Spoony or Lord Kat, Joe's stuff feels very impersonal and more like a TV show). Don't like gaming heroes too much either, but never really gave them a chance.

Feel free to recomend stuff like this, i do need more stuff to watch lately.

Sonic 4 with a dose of skeptism...

So back in September of 2009 Sega had announced they were making a "2d" sonic. I was skeptical at most because every single Sonic game since Sonic and Knuckles pretty much sucked. It was as if Sega just decided to let some furry fanboy/girl loose on the game franchise and the result was some of the shittiest games Sega has ever released, I would rather play War Gods than some of the stuff Sega has given the world for the past decade.

Anyway someone sent me a link to the official page for Sonic 4
www.sonicthehedgehog4.com

Now most of you young whippersnappers will be going: FINALLY THOSE OLD FARTS CAN SHUT UP NOW ABOUT THE OLDSCHOOL SONIC. Well let me tell you, Sega has already managed to screwed it up.

Here is what Sonic 4 going for it:

• It's an actual sequel follow up to Sonic and Knuckles.
• You only play as plain Sonic. That's right no light saber wielding motorcycle riding sonic.
  
• Robotnik is the villain (though he will be referred to as Eggman)
• Simplified gameplay (or what appears to be simplified)
• Use of old logo and font!
  

Here's why we old folks are griping:

• When you tell us 2d, we were expecting sprites. That's right sprites. Not this polygon in a 2d view point.
• It's the new sonic design.
• There's a plot?
• Episode 1. REALLY?

The music has not been released yet so that is still up for judgment.

While I maybe judging the game too harshly even before it's release, may I remind you the "Sonic" games they have released:
Sonic Adventure, Adventure 2, Shuffle, Battle, Heroes, Rush, Rush Adventure, Secret Rings, Black Knight, Rivals, and Riders.

I'm probably missing a bunch of other dumb games, but the point I am making is that Sega has yet to convince me of anything.

+1 Badassedness

Zach and me tried the 2nd Borderlands expansion. It's pretty much survival rounds, a lot of rounds...

It's ok action wise, but, you get no experience, cash or weapons. Well, you get weapons at the end of each round, which has 5 waves, but they're nothing special. i didn't come across anything useful through the entire thing.

So yeah, it's a survival for the sake of being a survival.

Annoying Banners

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

There you are browsing along for something (it's probably information as to why a shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes) click on a link to an article or picture and suddenly you are redirected to a full page size ad. What the heck? Oh there's a link on the top that says to "click here to skip ad". You click and it takes a few seconds to get to the thing you were looking for in the first place.

Well folks with XP (and possibly vista and 7), can go to this page and update your host file. This will redirect those pages to your computer and will remove those ads forever.

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\host

Hat hats hats, I'm sick of them!

This has been a feeling growing inside me for a while now, but i just can't play TF2 anymore. The point of it seems lost with all the stupid hats and the farming of hats and the stupid crafting system that really doesn't help that much.

It seems that TF2 is all about farming hats now. I'm sick of leaving the game on at night on an idle server and in the morning i didn't get shit cause for some random reason i got dropped, or idling 12 hours and only get 1 item.


I dunno what the hell the TF2 team was thinking when they decided to force people to farm idling time to get hats. I rarely start the game to have fun in it anymore. There's also lil point in making hats now if when u make one, it'll b random and if they'll release more hats in the future, it's a fucking paradox.

Whenever i do try to pick up the game to have fun with it again, i always end up in an average team against another average team with 1 or 2 guys in it that are either really skilled or have a cheap tactic that works against my team cause no one is attempting any kind of teamwork.

On an unrelated note, yesterday and today were so incredibly boring i decided to pick up C# and try to make a small program. It was ok, progress was slow but i was able to google most stuff and debug the bugged as hell examples online (seriously why would someone post an example with half the code missing?), but i got stuck at a part where i needed to resize a picture inside a picture box, my problem is that C# blurs the fuck out of zoomed images, and i needed it to be pixelated. I even found a tip on using bilinear resize, but it didn't do anything at all. Since it defeats the point of the application i was making, i put a fork in it.

It often annoys me that I'm a software major, but in college we we're taught any language to a point we would b comfortable with it, we experimented with a lil of everything but if someone asked me to make something, i wouldn't know what to pick. that's why i was hoping to make something in C#. Can't say i wasted my time though, i'm sure the way things have been i wouldn't had done anything at all anyway.