- Kenny’s party on Friday night was a something else… parts of it was loads of fun, others were rather awkward, and some were downright bizarre. Whether it was the mix of Japanese punk rockers and dock workers, catching bits of some rock concert at Wembley Stadium from some DVD featuring a band dressed up as the sun and raccoons (then followed by Rush), the two Amazonian women that showed up, totally drunk and obnoxious, the angry drunk guy that was totally hot for the two chicks plus Kenny’s hockey card collection, or watching Jay and his brother trying to get some music playing by messing around with Kenny’s equipment in a scene that closely resembled a really rundown pirate radio station, it was everything one would expect from one of Kenny’s shindigs.
- The rest of the weekend was far more low-key. I mostly just sat around doing work at MK’s while her and Robin assembled perfect-bound edition of Catfight, with the Simpsons (season 6), Little Britain, and Arrested Development playing the background. Though we did managed to hit the Japanese food store where I bought close to $50 in Japanese candy and toys; some of it was pretty damn hot (I took pictures too, but since MK lost her USB cable, and I couldn’t find a matching one at work, I can’t share them at the moment, unfortunately). We also went to the Japanese department store next door and I found a copy of Buchigire Kongou which I was tempted to pick up (but didn’t since… you know… I blew close to $50 in Japanese candy and toys).
Also walked around the Ramapo Reservation, where MK & I did managed to get some R&R before our heavy schedules kick in.
- I got home last night relatively early, and figured since I got so much work done over the weekend that I deserved a night dedicated to just playing games.
At first I was going to try out some of the games mentioned in the recent Insert Credit threads dedicated to weird, obscure, and unappreciated NES and Game Boy games (there’s some truly awesome stuff in there… reminds me, I’m supposed to start one about the Genesis, but I’ve just been so busy to get it together). But instead, I figured that I’d relax by playing some more Killer 7. Bad idea.
The novelty has officially worn off. As much as I can’t get enough of the style and the atmosphere, there’s simply no way getting around the fact that the gameplay itself is taking a back-seat, with extremely tiresome levels, idiotic enemies, and controls that are absolute shit. I spent half an hour on the second level’s final boss simply because I couldn’t aim with the character I was supposed to be using… who happens to be the one that supposedly has the expert aiming abilities. When a game asks for precision but won’t give you the means to exercise it, then there’s something fundamentally wrong. I told myself that if I couldn’t beat that boss, I wouldn’t even bother touching the game ever again, but I did and I guess I’ll continue to play, but much of my patience and enthusiasm has already been wasted.
- As for gaming news, I was elated to find out from a recent Gamasutra piece that Keita Takahashi, the genius behind Katamari (and a game designer that everyone seems to be in love with right now) was once involved with a game that I became obsessed upon just hearing about it. That game? Den-sen, the game where you play a little girl that travels by swinging off power lines via a clothes hanger. The connection makes perfect sense really.
And thanks to the IC forums, I was also happy to come across something I had seen many years ago and which most have no clue existed: from the pages of Gamefan, Chocobo de Battle…
80 million polygons. Pretty fucking unbelievable, huh? And remember, this about seven or so years ago. It also looks far worse than I remembered it originally.
Someone else brought this up, which seems to indicate that Gamefan was completely full of shit (not exactly a surprise, I know)…
Lee Perry regarding the game: September 3, 1997
*************************************************
Been a busy little monkey! Saw a page of my images from Square in this months GameFan
on page 112. Apparently I’m destined to be buried with that damn monkey/mechabo image.
I’m not sure where they got the story information though, they claimed Square was running
our Chocobo De Battle game at 80 million polys a second (Hey! A monkey flew out my ass!)
when the most we ever optimistically expected was 5 million a sec. Not to mention that
was on a 1.25 million dollar Onyx2 SGI with some 2 gigs of RAM, it would be ungodly hard
(not to mention cost prohibitive) to get performance like that in an arcade anytime soon.
- Here’s an interesting article that asks if games are getting easier. While I do agree with many of the points that are brought up, I don’t feel that games are overall becoming easier as a result. Once again, if a person becomes extremely fluent with the ways of gaming, its only natural that everything will become easier as a result. But there’s more to this… which I might touch upon again at a later date.
- Check out this device in the works that will let you play your PSP games and movies on a television set. Yeah, pretty pointless, I know.
- And here’s a page that lists various mysterious video game deaths. No mention of those folks who killed themselves by swallowing silicone when Dead or Alive Ultimate got postponed in Japan.
- Back in the real world, today was the first day of the new school year at SVA, so work was pretty busy as one might imagine. But the big thing was not the influx of freshmen and getting the labs into the tip-top shape. Nope, its the impending burger wars…
Long story short, in the building I work, which is the West 21st building, there used to be a guy who ran a small cafeteria in the basement. For the past 15 or so years, this guy, Moe, ran “Moe’s”, which served burgers and coffee to the students, faculty, and staff. And over that time, he became a staple of SVA and a fairly popular fellow. Not to me of course… first off, the food he makes will make give you the runs, no matter what. Plus the guy charged insane prices for such shitty food… $3.50 for a grilled cheese sandwich? Fucking whatever. Hey, at least I’m a guy and I got my shit with very little b.s. involved, cuz for girls he would flirt and even brazenly on hit on them before giving them their food so they can be on their way. Keep in mind these girls are mostly freshmen students, about 18 or 19. Get the picture?
I must confess that I also have a personal bone to pick with a guy stemming from an incident a few years back when I was a student worker; he thought he caught me stealing a soda a huge shouting match ensued… there’s not much of a story here other than he was a total dick-head who didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. But I digress…
Anyhow, earlier this year, SVA basically told him to pack his bags because they were bringing in a more professional catering service to address the needs of the student body. And guess what? These new folks are far more professional, with better tasting foods at reasonable prices. And despite the fact that Moe still had his “fans”, the new place was a hit among most (especially with the girls… gee I wonder why). Things were going so well that the powers that be decided to invest even more money into the place and christen it some fancy name… Boo’s Bar, or something equally ridiculous. It re-opened today with a brand new menu that was advertised via an all concerned email a few days ago, which seems more than a little excessively, but whatever, I was eager to try out the heavily touted $2 hamburger. I even had said el-cheapo lunch on my mind as I was walking to work in the morning when I noticed one of those small snack stands near the school building. It was strange since over the almost ten years I’ve walked down the street, there’s never been a breakfast/lunch cart in that vicinity. Once I got closer, I noticed the name “Moe’s”, and upon looking inside, saw Moe’s face! It seems that he has declared a hamburger war and right up in SVA’s face.
During lunch, I went down to the new Bloo-Boo-whatever and got the advertised $2 burger. It was like a hockey puck made out of processed… stuff, with a bun that was both hard and damp, and made peeling away to add ketchup a bit of a mess. It was JUST like the burgers they served in elementary school lunches. So needless to day, I fucking loved it. All I need is some tater tots and a small milk box to go totally back in time.
________________________________________________________________________________
… Okay, so my whole day wasn’t spent obsessing over hamburgers. Actually, it was mostly dedicated towards dealing with freelance clients, and all I can say is that I’m absolutely sick of the freelance lifestyle. Specifically, trying to fight over payment that’s more than due. I’m not going to name names, though I’ll say upfront that its nobody whom I’ve been doing regular business with (I sincerely enjoy writing for Nick Mag, for example, and they more than compensate me appropriately). It just that I’ve been dealing with a sudden rash of flakey clients that want work pronto, but once it’s delivered, getting paid becomes a fucking ordeal and a half.
At least I have two-dollar burgers to help stretch my budget.
