Another week passes and another belated entry. What’s been the highlight of this particular week?
I guess it would have from this past weekend, very late Sunday night/early Monday morning at MK‘s. After watching the entire first disc of season three of Arrested Development in one sitting (which was basically the first half of the season), we felt like lazy slugs, hence the desire to go outside and breathe some fresh air. Problem was, at 1:30 on a Sunday in the middle of suburban New Jersey, our options were limited. There’s always diners, but we just had dinner. So we went to a Dunkin Donuts on the highway. MK and Robin got coffee, and I got hot chocolate plus a few cookies. We all got to watch the guy behind the counter toss a ton of muffins in the trash, which was sorta depressing. We also took the corner table to sip and chat.
A number of police and fire department guys went in and out of the place while we were there, which I guess makes sense, but otherwise the place was pretty deserted. I think I was in the middle of describing my Friday nights during my firsts semester of college, in which I hung out in the dorm room of a self-appointed cool guy, where he would go down this really long list of numbers posted by his phone and call each one to find out if any parties were going on, and apparently nothing ever was (yeah right), while I just sat and played Mortal Kombat 2 on his Genesis, when… this guy comes up and flashes a badge. He claimed to be a cop and he told us that there was some massive gas leak and that we had to evacuate the premises pronto. Despite the convincing badge, something seemed off about the guy; he seemed high to me at least. But we could all sense that some shit was about to go down, so we made our way out with no hesitation.
I remember “the officer” telling the same thing to the Dunkin Donuts worker there, who was all shocked. You could tell that it was probably his first night at the job. So he immediately started to get ready to leave himself. While in the parking lot, as we approached out car, I asked the others if they thought he was a cop, and they both went “No…” We figured that the place was going to get robbed or something, hence why we wanted to hit the road immediately. And as we went through the parking lot, we passed guy, and I noticed that he was with some woman, an older chick, who looked like his wife. The type who I bet was a groupie for Journey back in the 80s and hasn’t really updated her look. Anyway, the dude appeared to be huffing an aerosol can of some sorta, and right out in the open, with not bag covering it or anything. He literally had the nozzle shoved right up his nose.
So that’s one. I guess you could say the other highlight was immediately afterwards, when we got home. The plan was to play some video games before sleeping, Soul Calibur 2 for Xbox to be exact, and both MK and Robin, along with MK’s brother Kevin would play for a solid three+ hours till almost six in the morning. I played a few games, but for the most part I was content with just downloading video game music from Galbadia Hotel; I hadn’t been there in a while and I was blown away to discover that all the stuff I had been long looking to get was finally available for download, including the music from Xevious 3D/G, the first arcade TMNT game, Knuckles Chaotix, and both the original Daytona USA album from B-UNIV and the soundtrack to Daytona USA 2001.
Also earlier in the weekend I got to stock up on a shitload of curry at H-Mart, witnessed MK eat Korean food for the first time, which unfortunately made her sick, watched an old Mystery Science Theater 3000 tape that MK’s dad’s friend had passed along, which not only included all Joel episodes (yes!), but two certified classics, the Amazing Colossal Man and Fugitive Alien, had hot dogs at Callahan’s (and at a different location, since the one in Fort Less is closed), uploaded various bits of game music and sound effects onto my cell phone (so now when my phone rings, it sounds like the codec from Metal Gear Solid… yes, I’m a gamer nerd, so help me), and got rear ended on the highway (but no one got hurt, neither car got damaged, and the girl who hit was super friendly and apologetic).
I guess last weekend was sorta exciting after-all, and I didn’t have to wait a whole to write about something. Especially since the past few days have been especially non-eventful. Though I got to watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in glorious high definition for movie night, and that was pretty freaking awesome. Also hung out with Mike the previous evening on Tuesday, and got to bitch about all the bullshit that I’ve had to deal with, and I got nice and drunk, on just THREE BEERS! In my defense, I did have a totally empty stomach. When I got home, I realized that Auto Modellista had just arrived from GameFly, but I was too wasted to really give it a proper spin.
Back to Soul Calibur 2: Christ, Spawn is fucking retarded. Worse than Heihachi in the PS2 version? No, not that bad (hey I like the old man, but he just didn’t fit in the game, plus one Tekken-ite is enough for me). But just as shitty as that other piece of shit Todd McFarlane character, Necrid, or whatever he’s called. Biggest problem with Spawn was he’s just too powerful and cheap. That and he just totally sticks out like a sore thumb. And call me crazy, but I sorta prefer the controls on GameCube; I’m just used to it. I also finally got around to using a gift certificate that a friend passed along for my birthday a whiles back on Sonic Rush (which a friend had sent to me as a gift, but one of the mail guys or interns at Nick Mag stole it I think). And like everyone says, an awesome playing game with a totally rocking soundtrack by Hideki Naganuma…. which just doesn’t fit the game.
But yeah, was more or less pretty busy all week, so once again, I’m pretty out of loop when it comes to gaming news. Hence why my highlights have been rather so boring as of late, sorry about that. Though I do know…
- The big story is of course Sony’s latest set-back with the PS3, which pretty much everyone has been talking (and laughing) about: the system’s launch has been delayed in Europe by four months, and the number of units available for the US and Japan has been cut to 500,000. Only 400,000 for the US and 100,000 for Japan.
Looks like it might be the Xbox 360 launch all over again, with Sony now using MS’s method of creating an artificial demand by making people act like total animals as they are forced to scurry around like crazy for a very small number of systems (hey, it did work). And not surprisingly, diehard gamers online are having a filed day with this news.
But in the end, this is all hardly a surprise (who the hell thought Sony would ever be able to deliever on those crazy launch plans that were announced at E3?) and given that there’s going to be even crazier news reports of people bashing other people’s heads in for a video game system, or more dumb smucks who spend $1000+ on an empty PS3 box (or better yet, a color photocopy of the consoles), than the 360, which will result in even more retards going “Gee, if its that popular, that I’s gots to have it!”, I’m sure Sony could give a rat’s ass what everyone else thinks. Also hence why I don’t necessarily see this as the nail in the coffin for them as many seem to believe.
- John passed this along earlier in the week: a remake of the original Goonies game to celebrate the 20th anniversary. It basically the original MSX game by Konami but with revamped graphics (which I never played, but I did enjoy the arcade game, which was pretty similar I would imagine). As John said, its good enough!
- Meanwhile the Insert Credit forums uncovered Shoot Things, a shmup for OS X that was created in just 23 days for some game competition. The basic gimmick is that you encounter foes and obstacles from various shooters: Space Invaders, Asteroids… even Metroids?
- Also from the IC boards are a pair of fairly interesting threads: the first is on Jesus: Dreadful Bio Monster, which is a really obscure old 8-bit adventure game which takes place on a space station called JESUS and deals with alien life forms that come from Halley’s Comet, and the second is about the two dudes responsible for the superb pixel work from old Irem games, as well as Metal Slug. Interesting stuff, though I wish more was said in each (here’s hoping that some folks might be reminded of them, and therefore compelled to contribute a bit more).
- The latest hot collector’s item burning up eBay has to be this ultra rare Nolan Bushnell Signature Series Atari 7800 system.
And guess what? I was once the proud owner of a 7800, and even choose it over the NES back in the day. Basically in my mind: Xevious > Super Mario Bros. Course, the far superior NES port of Xeviou showed up, plus I had really gotten into Gradius, so I of course had to get an Nintendo as well.
- Hot on the heals of the very successful Lego Star Wars games comes Lego Batman.
As pointed out by K. Thor, the whole Star Wars “thing” worked with Legos since you could break stuff apart and put them together again with the Force, but the Batman world is entirely different, so I too have to wonder if its just going to be Batman and company running around as Legos just for the sake of it, or if they might actually do something cool with it. Its going to be by the same dev team, Traveler’s Tale, who are really hit or miss. Hopefully they’ll get Richard Jacques for this one.
- So Game Quest Direct, the folks who helped to resurrect Rez and Gutiaroo Man have brought back a new one, that being Zone of Enders: the 2nd Runner. So for those of you who missed out on one of the prettiest looking games ever for the PS2, as well as one of the finest mech games ever created period, here’s your second chance. It’s all about the tranforming Vic Viper.
- Speaking of mechs, here’s a video from an Xbox tile called Metal Wolf Chaos that feature one piloted by…. the President of the United States. It?s worth clicking just for the AMAZING narration in the beginning.
EDIT: Okay, so someone over at IC just beat the game and passed along a description of the final parts:
the president of the united states of america surfed on a piece of the ISS
inside a halfpipe made out of another piece of the ISS
in space
trying to save his traitorous vice president, who was burning up due to atmospheric reentry
before that, i took back the white house
which had been converted to the “fight house”
by the end of the game, i was dual wielding miniguns
said miniguns were made up of three full-sized minigun barrels
OMG, I have to play this fucking game.
- And here’s a James Kochalka music vide that’s shot entirely on a Game Boy Camera.
God I love Game Boy Camera anything. There used to be several webpages dedicated to aspiring filmmakers who used them to make all sorts of short movies, mostly experimental stuff. I believe they managed to created some sort of PC cards to interface the camera and their computers, but all of them have vanished Oh, and I used to have an old Pocky & Rocky cover from Kochalka, but I can’t seem to find it.
…. And speaking of aspiring filmmakers, the other big news I guess is that my director’s account from YouTube was finally approved. Which means I can finally pass along all the crazy shit I’ve recorded and collect from international television, NYC cable access, and assorted other source for years. Finally everyone will be able to enjoy Karate Ruler, Iranian Alf, and of course, Taste of Bread.
Basically, its a short horror flick I made with Dave back in 1999. Him and I, along with his cousin Dan, were bored one hot summer weekend in Long Island, so we said to ourselves, “let’s make a movie!” Along for the fun was Dave’s sister Michele and her boy friend Rob. Both Dave & I did camera and direction, and we pretty much thought of stuff on the fly. Both of us, along with Dan, switched on and off as the monsters.
Though the real star of the movie was the camera, which was actually a kid’s toy and can be best described as a lense for a VCR, which mean all the footage was actually recorded by one, hooked up via RCA cables. Meaning, when we had outside shots, we had to drag the VCR out onto the lawn.
Dave did all the editing (again, with just a VCR… actually, two of them) to a Mike Patton song, which turned out quite brilliantly. But it?s all due to the camera for making things look so weird and sometimes creepy. Often it would change the color of things for no reason (so what was black comes out gray, but not always).
Oh, and the monster at the door, knocking against it? That one was me, and I was really slamming my head against the thing, pretty hard too, to get the audio, which you can sorta make out, mixed with Spongebob Squarepants playing in the background…
- And lastly, it’s about to strick midnight here on the east coast, which means it’ll soon be 9/9, and you know what that means, right? The Dreamcast came out in the US exactly seven years ago…
Nevar forget people. And I think I’m going to celebrate by playing some Cosmic Smash till MK arrives!
Oh, also, its Joe‘s birthday. Happy b-day Sweet Rot!
