December 2006

I’ve been playing the Cube version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the past hour, and its seriously the most aggravating, and depressing, video game-playing experience I’ve had in a VERY LONG time. I’ve barely started the god damn game and I’m already stuck. Again, for an hour now I’ve been trying to catch a fish and its just not happening.

For those who don’t know, before you can do anything, you have to catch a fish for some stupid cat which is supposed then allow you to buy some item or whatever so you can finally leave the village and get a sword and actually get on with the damn game. Yeah, its just as retarded and gay as it sounds.

First off, I appreciate the game designers trying to create some mood or some shit by having you perform dumb little tasks before starting off on your grand journey, but come on, this is fucking ridiculous. I bought a goddamn Zelda game to fight bad guys and to explore dungeons, among other things. Not to spend, once more, literally AN ENTIRE HOUR trying to catch a damn fish. It wouldn’t be so bad if fishing was something you did later on in the game, like a side mission or a mini-game, but to force you to do it right from the beginning is just plain insane. Again, when you do dumb little tasks around your homebase before setting off, its to hone skills that will be used later on. So am I to assume that fishing is going to be a major component of the entire game?! But the thing is, I actually like fishing in video games! The heart of the problem is the method itself makes no fucking sense on any level.

You start off by casting your line into the water with a button. Fine. But then once its in the water, you really can’t do anything. In virtually every single fishing game out there, what you do is draw the hook back towards you since the movement is what attracts the fish and entices them to bite. Not in this game. Literally all you do is throw the hook into the water and wait for the fish to just come to it. And trust me, I’ve tried every damn button on the controller to move the line, and none of them do shit. The only other action is to bring the hook back, by hitting back on the C stick.

Though making things much worse, and COMPLETELY nonsensical, is the fact how the hook after its cast will fall below the line of sight, so you have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on. You might see fish sorta swimming around, but there’s no way to tell if its approaching the hook or not. Then again, its not like you can do anything about it.

But the worst part is when you finally get a catch. Because no real instructions were given on how to properly reel your line back in, you’re just stuck there without a clue to do. Again, you’re supposed to hit down on the C stick, but either I’m doing it too fast or too slow because virtually every fish has been lost. Considering it takes like five minutes of just standing there and doing nothing to finally get a bite, this is fucking AGGRAVATING.

Oh, so get this: I finally caught a fish, so what happened? Nothing. According to online resources (the fact that I had to consult one for a Zelda game so early on pisses me off on so many levels), I have to catch a second fish, which is the one that the cat will take for himself (why the fuck doesn’t he just take the first one?). So after what seemed like forever, I managed to get a second fish. Guess what again? NOTHING. Apparently the cat wasn’t there, so the action he was supposed to do couldn’t happen. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This shit is so bad that I am seriously fighting the urge to either chuck my GameCube out the window or just give up on video games in general. I’m gonna give it another shot, and if I can’t get shit to happen in the next thirty minutes, then I’m giving the game to the first person who asks for it.

EDIT: Okay, so after almost another hour of me trying, I finally managed to catch another fucking fish very late last night. And poor MK had to sit and watch me get all pissed off the whole time, as well as assure me that there was no reason to get so angry at a video game, but she also gets super annoyed by such retardedness in video games, so she could at least sympathize.

I realized by myself that if I ever so slightly touched the C stick, I could kinda move the hook around, but there’s zero degree of finesse involved, due in part to the size and shape of the C stick (now I understand why everyone hates it so much), so instead of delicately moving the line around, it’s mostly just awkward, sudden movements. Plus I still couldn’t see what was going on. And there was like a solid twenty minutes where I would get a bite every one or two minutes, but once more, since I had no idea what the best way to reel the fish in, they always got away. The key I would discover was to VERY SLOWLY tug at the line, but whenever I finally got a bite, I would get so excited since something’s actually happening (and I so desperately wanted to get it over with) that I would hit the stick just teeny-weenie bit too much and fuck things up.

But anyway, I got another goddamn fish, which the dumbshit cat grabbed, which meant I could finally buy… a slingshot. But then I didn’t have enough money! Which meant wasting another ten minutes running through the grass looking for loose change or throwing fruit against the wall to see if any rupees are inside. At this point it past four in the morning and I seriously wanted to just shoot myself. Eventually I got enough fucking rupees to buy the fucking slingshot, which again I was supposed to get, but in the end it was just to impress a bunch of kids and do some dumb little target practice game, and it seemed to have nothing to do with getting my sword. What bullshit.

My enthusiasm to play this game has been severely diminished. I know that thing are going to get better (well, it god damn better), but I’m already so annoyed that I kinda don’t care anymore.

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Wednesday
Movie night this week as a double header: Brain Candy, the Kids in the Hall feature film, which just gets and better with age (I distinctly recall absolutely everyone hating the film when it came out, including the folks I saw it with, and they were all diehard KITH fans… and with everyone a slave to anti-depressants in the this country, the movie’s more relevant than ever), and A History Of Violence, which I kinda dug, even if it was a bit too low-key for a Cronenberg movie. MK on the other hand thought it was a lame-ass Blue Velvet wannabe, and I can see her point.

But the highlight of the evening was later on, in the train. While checking out what I had on my iPod, MK came to my Nullsleep playlist and decided to take a listen. MK already knows Jeremiah… we all hung out earlier this summer for Otakon… but she’s never heard any of his stuff. I’ve tried turning her onto chiptunes numerous times in the past, but she’s never been too receptive, so I’ve sorta just given up. Hence why I was more than a little shocked at this sudden burst of interest. Then again, I figured since I hung out with the guy, perhaps her curiosity had taken ahold of her, so cue up Supernova Kiss, which perhaps the one song that Nullsleep is most known for, and…

MK liked it! She really liked what she heard! MK also checked out some other cuts from the latest 8bitpeoples CD that I got at the Blip Fest, and really dug them as well! Hear that! MY GIRLFRIEND LIKES CHIPTUNES!!! And this whole time I thought she hated beeps and boops! Apparently, my timing has simply always been poor; whenever I tried playing stuff for her, its always been in the car, and she flat out doesn’t like hearing anything techno-ish while driving, since it amps her up, which is not good for her behind the wheel (and I will confess, as much as I’d like to listen to the soundtrack to Daytona or Ridge Racer, it would probably be a very bad thing since I’d probably be prone to put the pedal to the medal). But yeah… as you can tell, I’m quite happy with this news. MK also mentioned that she wouldn’t mind going to a show with me in the future!

And the good news kept on piling; waiting for me when I arrived home was a package from Sprout. It was a copy of Karate Ruler on DVD! As you might recall, I was able to come with terms with the director over my posting the movie on YouTube, and he was nice enough to send me a proper copy so I could “chuck that bootleg” that I’ve had for years (and which is starting to show its age. Now here’s the thing, I didn’t just get Karate Ruler, but also the sequel, Karate Lover, which I’ve known about but have never seen…. PLUS, a third Karate movie, Karate Rabbi! Yeah, I had no idea it existed, which was apparently created before Karate Ruler. BTW, the disc I received is called the Karate Trilogy.

Also, earlier in the afternoon I finally received my copy of Guitar Hero 2 (plus guitar) from the fine folks at Red Octane were nice enough to supply me. It’ll sure come in handy for a piece I have plans for, that’s all about my love and obsession with music based games, despite the fact that I have absolutely no rhythm and flat-out suck at them. Hey, remember me going all ga-ga over Rhythm Tengoku? Well I’ve had it for months now, and despite many, many attempts, I still can’t get past the fucking tutorial in the very beginning.

Anyway, so instead of giving Twilight Princess another spin (I only played it for an hour the night before, and I got stuck at the infamous fishing part… which does indeed suck, and I’m a guy who loves fishing video games), I pulled out my Guitar Hero 1 axe, and we played two player co-op for a bit (though MK did play GH2 for a bit by herself while I did email, which allowed her to open up some songs).

Thursday
Yesterday I got the chance meet and interview director Zhang Yimou for Inside Kung Fu Magazine about his latest film Curse of the Golden Flower, which was also released yesterday in Hong Kong (he directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers btw). This new one opens in NYC next week and across the rest of the country in early January.

Then, later in the evening was yet another holiday party, this one for SVA. I mostly just hung out with Liz (and as expected, earlier this morning folks were asking who I was with and if she was my “new girlfriend” and stuff). Ate like a pig (it was at Blue Smoke, this jazz club/rib joint), but didn’t drink any; I’ve decided to cut back on the boozing for a bit. Besides, I need to get in better shape for my Japanese debut next summer, since the last thing I need is to get exhausted on stage dressed as an evil cereal box (though the idea of me then passing out and falling on some Japanese school kids in the audience, again in goofy costume, is kinda funny). Hence why I didn’t stay long (had work waiting for me at home, plus laundry), though I didn’t get out in time to catch Conan at the Anthology Archives. Though Mike (Rovin) said that the sound sucked, which is hardly surprising, since its the Archives and all (hey, it my fave movie-house in the city, but the audio, and especially the seats, leave a lot to be desired).

Friday
And sometime around midnight, version 2 of my site finally went live! As you can see, there’s a number of additionals, such as handy links to assorted other web “presences” I have, such as my LiveJournal, which I use to “broadcast” my posts on that end (and folks who don’t have it probably had no idea it existed, so now they can see the comments I get from LJ users). Plus I’ve got links to other blogs belonging to friends, and a poll as well (Jason was able to find a WordPress plug-in). Oh, and I have ads now (hey, a man’s gotta eat Mr. Lahey), as well as several under the hood improvements that only myself and Jason know about. The rest of the site has been tweaked as well, with a few minor adjustments on the way (such as the links section). And yes… the forums are still coming.

Already one person (Katie, actually) has asked what “The truth.” is supposed to mean (which is visible at the very top, if you got the the main journal page and not when viewing just an individual entry), and its basically some code term that Jason always uses when working on a beta versions of my blog, which I guess he forgot to turn off this time around. And I think I’ll keep it… since the real catch-phrase which I’d like to use, “For every ten minutes you spend here, I save you thirty minutes of web crawling elsewhere” which Job once said, but its a bit long I guess.

I’ve also decided to not go with shorter, more frequent posts and just stick to the long-formed entries that I’ve been doing. Screw all those folks that don’t like to read! Though actually, to make things easier for those who are into only certain things, I’m going to tighten up the organization and add sub-headers (which Im still not totally sure how I’m going to handle, so bare with me if things seems a bit rough or wonky at first).

Okay, enough talk about the site. Time for….

Random Video Game Related “Stuff” From The Past Couple of Days (In Case Anyone’s Missed It)
- Remember Sony’s latest bit of god-awful PR? Well perhaps its no coincidence that, right off the heels of their latest transparent attempt to fabricate hype and look “kewl” blowing up in their faces (which btw seems to have been wiped clean from the face of the internet), the Federal Trade Commission has decided to investigate viral marketing. I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Like all forms of advertising, and everything else really, if done well, like the aforementioned ilovebees, its can be pretty damn awesome, but if done poorly, the damage can be far reaching. So an investigation like this is ultimately in the end a good thing, since it gives everyone a reality check and will hopefully make people not only smarter and more responsible, but also more creative. Again, honesty is the best policy.

- Here’s something I totally didn’t expect: Microsoft recently updated the 360 BC list. I kinda assumed that MS had quietly given up on the initiative. But most surprising of all is not only did Psychonauts on the list, but so is Shenmue 2! Though I won’t be satisfied till Jet Set Radio Future and Panzer Dragoon Orta finally makes the jump.

- Two additional bits on an earlier subject: first, Jason gave me the heads up on this one… Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Joel Zumaya injuries weren’t due to playing ball but from playing… Guitar Hero.

Also, why just have a guitar when you can also have an amp as well.

- So Christmas is right around the corner, which means I’ll be playing Christmas NiGHTS to celebrate the holiday. Though now it appears that I’ll finally have just more than one festive game to mark the season. The makers of DEFCON, that real-time war strategy game that basically looks straight out of WarGames, is releasing an Xmas mod!

- Here’s another YouTube vid, courtesy of the SelectButton forums; remember Rumble Roses, that shit-tastic all women wrestling game for the PS2 from a whiles back? Well that was in 3D, so how about the same formula, but in 2D? At least that’s what Wrestle Angels SURVIVOR looked to be, and since I have an affinity for two-dimenional games, I figured I’d at least watch the whole vid, but around the half-way point I asked myself “okay, when the hell do they start to wrestling?” and then I realized that there’s no actual wrestling, but instead its dating-sim or something. Boo-urns.

- Back to the subject of the holiday season, I still haven’t done much Christmas shopping, though I always try to do mine way ahead of time, but this year I’m kinda poor right, which is making the entire process rather tricky. Hence why I should maybe take the San Francisco Chronicle’s advice and just get everyone a Dreamcast!

- Sticking with both the Dreamcast and GameSetWatch, Simon recently passed along word that the English translation for Segagaga is thankfully coming along!

- Now going back to the Saturn, did you know that Dynamite Deka, aka Die Hard Arcade, is coming back?!

- Via Insert Credit, did you Hideo Kojima (you know, the guy who created Metal Gear Solid) has been making DS games? Also, check out this Wii game that, like the article says, NO ONE has been talking about.

- And via The Gamer’s Quarter message boards, there was a recent discussion regarding back-up units for the Mega Drive/Genesis (back when software piracy for consoles still required hardware… and I have rather fond memories of those days; my friend Rod had this back up unit for the N64 that accepted Zip disks (remember those?) and I used to think it was the coolest thing ever.

Well, those days are apparently not dead! Apparently new to the market are the MegaCart and the Neo MD Flash Cart, the latter of which I am mighty tempted in picking up.

- While doing research earlier this morning on Crash Bandicoot (don’t ask), I came across this: a website of some costume maker who knows nothing about video games and was then commissioned to make an outfit based on a Chocobo from Final Fantasy… and the results are scary as fuck. Though perhaps not frightening as some of the other outfits. I mean, Jesus Christ, look at that Moogle!

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