Just a quickie update, for real…
Yesterday was a pretty decent day, despite being sick: first off, my shirts from Meat Bun arrived! I got three in total, the SUPER/NEO/MEGA/TURBO tee that I showed last time, The Four shirt, and cuz I still have a hard-on for Typing of the Dead, the Type or Die shirt. Each came in totally hawt plastic slipcases, similar to how they do it in Japan (so Meat Bun means SERIOUS BUSINESS). Which means I’ll actually feel bad for taking them out! I was actually going to take pics last night BTW, but got caught up in stuff. Anyjow, I plan on wearing each loud and proud at ICON in a few weeks.
Also in my mail was my Wii! Needless to say, I was ecstatic. Though when I checked out the report that Nintendo enclosed, I became more than a little confused and concerned; apparently, the Nintendo repair people were unable to replicate the problems I had reported, so they replaced the main circuit board. Which is fine and all, but I was under the impression that my problem originated from the graphics processor, which was what was replaced on Dave Mauro’s system (he had the same exact weird glitches). Does anyone know if the GPU is part of the main circuit board, integrated, or a separate unit? Hence why I was afraid of the worst before finally powering it up, but the problem is gone, thank goodness. And Dave’s “welcome back!” message that immediately popped up was really nice. Though from this point on, I’m going to be a little bit paranoid of it over-heating and the such.
So right after work, I tossed aside my original plans to go furniture shopping for a trip to the game store to get Super Smash Bros Brawl, which they thankfully had. And as soon as I got home, and after Katie was done with the episode of Trailer Park Boys she was watching, WE GOT IT ON! Via Brawl I mean. I also played some of solo stuff, primarily the classic adventure mode, which I don’t find nearly as fun as it was in Melee, but otherwise, everything is much bigger and better. Though don’t take me word for it… especially since I haven’t spent all that much time with it…. take Dave’s, who is actually prepping up a review of the game, which I guaran-damn-tee will be the DEFINITIVE SSB Brawl review to ever hit the web. Wait for it!
And of course, just as I got a ping from Dave to join in on a match (him and some folks needed a fourth), the dancer finally showed up. Oh, so the third pretty cool thing from yesterday was that I sold my eMac! To some dancer from Harlem. Guy was a tall black dude with a red beard and a funny hat according to Katie, though I didn’t notice at the time. Another nervous moment was when I ran a Apple Hardware Test disc right before he arrived, which I hadn’t done before, and was afraid of some major red flag coming up, right on the brink of another sale, though thankfully everything checked out. Didn’t get much for it I’m afraid… I’m pretty certain I got more for my old G3 iMac, which I sold to some snotty asshole photographer for his “retard son” (hey his words, not mine… again, the dude was an asshole)… but considering it’s a four year old machine, using a processor whose line is no longer the primary focus of Apple’s (and to think, we all thought the G5 would go long and far, till the G6′s arrival), with a OS that is no longer the new hotness (even at this early stage, Leopard does fix a lot of the more annoying things that Tiger did, even after, what, eleven updates?), a paltry amount of video ram, as well as super slow USB 1.2, plus has one of the first reputations of any recent era Macs, I should be happy that I got anything in the end. And I’m also grateful that no incident too place; he could have easily murdered us both. Though I will have to see him again, later tonight; the AC cord to the machine was accidentally left behind.
Back to the Wii; now that it’s back, Brawl will surely dominate all my free-time, though I’m also eager to finish No More Heroes as well (if anyone can offer advice on how to handle the one-legged, grenade chucking lady boss, it would be greatly appreciated). And just in time, because I have sorta given up on Echochrome, which was the one title I’ve been concentrating on for the past week or so, and which I was gonna write about last time, but totally forgot to…
Once again, Echochrome is that M.C. Escher looking title for the PSP. The concept is pretty sound; its a puzzler that relies heavily on perspective and optical illusions. The game has a figure that resembles a wooden drawing model walking along a path, back and forth; when it comes to the end, the figure simply turns the other way. The goal of each level is direct him towards a certain part of the stage is more or less inaccessible, generally another platform that separated by a gap, as well as distance and height. Because you can’t directly control the figure, nor can it climb or jump on its own, the challenge is to get it from point A to B by manipulating the level itself. To do this, one has to play around with the five “rules” that govern the game’s universe. FAKE EDIT: And instead of explaining them like I’ve tried to in the last thirty minutes with much confusion, how about everyone just take a look at this video once again, since each of the rules is completely illustrated in the first forty seconds.
The game simply looks and sounds amazing. Obviously, the graphics are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I absolutely love the minimalist look, which handles the gameplay brilliantly. To be honest, Echochrome is not so different from Crush, but that game has such annoying and ugly aesthetics that it literally made me not want to go near it. In addition to the visuals, the soundtrack, which is mostly violins and violas, is also phenomenal. As for the game itself, I’m not certain what version I’ve been playing, since there’s a few variants that have been released in parts of Asia thus far, but the one I’ve been playing offers a good number of challenges to tackle right from the get-go, all of them pretty damn tough. This is not a puzzle game for the faint of heart. But I do love a good challenge, hence why I loved Echochrome… at first. Problem is, either there’s a hidden six rule that is never spoken off or the game has bugs. Not always, but sometimes your dude will fall off when there’s supposed to be a connected path that was “created” by moving things around; I thought the figure was supposed to just go back and forth when coming to the end of a path? Also, getting stuff to connect is not always easy, and as Dave puts it, that might have something to do with the poor resolution of the PSP when compared to the PS3′s version. I have to wonder if it suffers from these same problems, primarily the last one. Still, I hope the does well, as all the quirky, “bite-sized” games that Sony is supporting, like flOw and Everday Shooter, plus like flOw, I’m glad there’s both a PS3 and PSP version. Now, if they would just do a portable version of Everyday Shooter…
I also recently discovered that I have roof access at my building! I immediately considered about taking THE PARTY up there, but since it’ll still be cold by then, I guess later this summer. BTW, while Katie was taking a smoke and I was getting some fresh air last night, we witnessed a pretty strange scene, even for New York City; going down 181 St were two trucks towing something massive: each had a subway car! And all along the route, police cops were escorting the haul and halting traffic if need be it. As for the cargo, since it was late and dark out, plus we were sorta far away, neither of us couldn’t make out any details… though they did not appear to be the new ones, so it’s not like two fresh off the factory floor subway cars were being taken to join the rest of the fleet, or so it felt. Given the high degree of security that surrounded them, I kinda get the feeling that perhaps they were evidence? Anyhow, the procession was slow enough to make me think about rushing down to the street with a camera, but as soon as they hit Broadway, both trucks made a right and disappeared…
Anyhow, Katie and I have also agreed that we will not be acquiring an illegal cable box anytime soon, because Manhattan cable access is providing more than enough entertainment. Seriously. Two nights ago we saw some bizarre sketch comedy show starring a really cute girl and a very sassy gay guy. One of the sketches took place at a movie theater, with the aforementioned folks playing assorted movie theater employees, plus a second girl as a retarded, uni-brow ticket handler. All the customers were actually drawings that were super imposed… you just have to see it to understand the brilliance… man, I really wish there was a way to easily snap screenshots from my television. Especially for this other show that I caught late last night, all in Chinese, about the end of the world. Remember the date folks: 2012.
But anway, since I just updated two days ago, there’s not too much to report from the forums, which has been somewhat slow, on account of everyone being busy, or not too much going on, I think, but anyhow…
- I guess I should mentioned that the official ICON 27 thread has been updated with the tentative schedule, so scroll to the very bottom to figure out what’s going on exactly.
- Also, scroll to the bottom of this thread for videos of Shredz64, which features Jeroen Tel!!!
- Once again, another game I can’t play cuz I’m on a Mac (at least, for the moment) which sounds pretty neat.
- Jones Soda Company enlisting the help of LOLcats? Ugh…
- Call me a pathetic Star Wars fanboy, but I just found the Cloud City desk-lamp not just cheesy but also a tad bit upsetting.
Finally, just stumbled across the latest greatest video of all time, at least if you’re a fan of Tron, and was going to add this to the random videos thread, but while I’m here…
… Hey, my first embed!
