09/22/2006

And That’s How I Prevent Myself From Shitting My Pants

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

Aside from video game related stuff, what’s been going on? Not much really… just been busy, trying to get things done as always (and stuff is getting done, which feels great, though not nearly enough I’m afraid). Hence why I’ve been laying pretty low; had to duck out on movie night once again this week and cut other social engagements off. But that?s how it goes.

Though last weekend I was able to relax a bit. Katie was in town, so I hung out with her which was super cool, along with MK and Robin. I recall one evening at the bar, I was talking about how crazy Koreans are (hey, as someone who’s half Korean, I have a free pass to say whatever I want, I’d like to think), which clearly annoyed the Korean guy in the group next to us (unfortunately, most people, not even other Koreans, can tell I’m half Asian).

MK & I also went out to Long Island to Dave‘s. She finally got to meet Dave’s mom and step-dad, which was sorta of a big deal in my mind since I’ve somewhat been adopted by the Roman family over the years, since my family is so far away. Also, I revealed something which I had never told anyone, ever before. Its one of those things that you maybe assume ever does or thinks and is therefore no big deal.

For me, ever since I was a little kid, I used to pretend that I was a robot or something, and wherever I looked, I would image all these charts and graphs and numbers crunching in the peripheral view. Remember how the Terminator saw stuff in the movies? Same thing.

As I grew older, the habit faded away (to be replaced with the idea that my eyes were a camera and that I was some walking cinematographer/director) but I do it every once in a while when I’m not feeling good. Specifically when my stomach is very upset and I really need to go to the bathroom. So to fight back the urge to go to hit the john, especially when I really can’t, such as if I’m in a subway train, I pretend that my “internal system” has to make adjustments or tap into some auxiliary power to prevent an accident. And when I start to feel that I’m dangerously close to, you know, shitting my pants or something, I imagine “DANGER! DANGER! CORE DUMP IMMINENT!!!” flashing across my vision.

Sounds really fucking crazy, I know. But hey, as someone who suffers from chronic irritable bowl syndrome, I’ve yet to crap myself! So it works.

Anyhow… I also did some light shopping over the weekend. Which I know sounds kinda foolish, since some might already know that my finances aren’t the best. But I’ve been pretty frugal and very good with money over the past few weeks, so I’m actually in a not so bad state right now (though selling stuff that I really don’t need anymore on eBay has really helped quite a bit as well). I took advantage of Virgin’s big sale by nabbing Wayne’s World on DVD for just $10, plus got MK Desperately Seeking Susan as a means to cheer her up, due to the hellish train ride out to LI earlier in the day.

When we got our seats on the LIRR train, I asked MK if she wanted to place her bag above her in the luggage compartment, but she thought it would be okay on the ground, near her feet. Then about 30 minutes into the ride, she went “Oh Jesus fuck…” and lifted her bag to reveal the entire bottom soaked with beer. And that’s easily one of the biggest reasons why riding the LIRR sucks dick: everyone on the fucking train is a god damn drunk. It was fucking 1:30 in the afternoon and yet people STILL had to having their fucking beers. Yeah, I know living if Ronkonkoma must be hell, but still, have a fucking grip. The dude behind us, who was obviously the culprit (and didn’t fucking apologize or anything) was the precise type of douchebag that one would expect of such a thing and that is so common on the LIRR: a skinny white guy in his forties with a scraggly mustache wearing a plain white sweatshirt, plus some New York sports team hat. What a piece of shit. And it wasn’t just him; to my right was some old lady, wearing a shawl, reading a Danielle Stelle book I bet, who also had a tall Budweiser in her hand. Fucking Long Island…

Thankfully MK’s bookbag is uber water resistant, so she placed it in the seat between us and dried it off with some napkins. When she put the bag away, there was some beer on the seat, which I wiped away. I then sat next to MK again, but after five minutes I realized that my jeans were wet. The beer had soaked through the seat and now were soaked through my pants. I had “beer ass.”

But back to the shopping…

I also got Cooking Mama for the DS as well. Yeah, there’s so many awesome games these past two weeks alone… Okami, Mega Man ZX, Rule of Rose, Rocket Slime… but instead of getting, say, the best Mega Man game in years, or the most beautiful looking game since Shadow of the Colossus, I got a cooking simulator instead. But hey, it was just $20. Anyway, its lots of fun! Though I must say, I’m not that upset whenever I fuck up and some hapless girl whom I’m suppose to protect gets eaten by zombies in Resident Evil 4 or am told “YOU DIED!”, but if I screw up and accidently over-boil some pasta and am told “Don’t worry. Mama will fix it.” I feel really horrible.

And since I’m talking about video games anyway, even though I wasn’t going to, I’m not go into any details regarding the Tokyo Game Show, but let’s just say that Sony is screwing it up big time. Yet, I now want a PSP once again.

Anyway, there’s quite a few things going on this weekend in the city. First there’s the Come Out and Play festival that takes place tomorrow, which I’m certain all my IGDA buddies will be expecting to see me at. Then later on in the evening is another chiptunes show at the Tank. Also, Michel Gondry’s new film, The Science of Sleep opens tonight, though I still haven’t decided if I want to see the exhibit at the Deitch before or after I see the movie.

But I won’t be around for any of it, because I have to take the train out to Jersey to put together books, for the Philly Zine Fest that happens on Sunday. There won’t be any new books from myself, nor MK, though I can’t speak for Robin or Liz who will also be joining us, but it will see the debut of the RMK Books “label”. And what does RMK stand for? Well… either Reed, Mary-Kate… Robin, Matt, and Katie… but not exclusively since Liz is also part of our crew. It can mean anything really. It’s just the one stop place for all our books at shows (and soon on the web). So if you’re going be around the Philly area that day, stop on by!

Alright, I’ve got a train to catch…

7 comments

09/21/2006

GSW Column Get!

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

First off, my new regular feature over at GameSetWatch finally begins today.

Once again it’s called Cinema Pixeldiso, and I’ll be reviewing movies either based upon or dealing with video games. The primary focus will be stuff that’s either relatively obscure or unfairly labeled as bad. That means no Silent Hill article, since I understand that movie was pretty decent, which sounds pretty boring to me.

I don’t have an official page for my column, but I’m sure it’ll be set up as soon as Simon‘s back from Japan (he’s there for the Tokyo Game Show). I’m also not sure if Thursdays will be the permanent day for it (I was sorta thinking either Mondays or Fridays since those days don’t have as many regular features), or if it’ll even be weekly or not (if so, I’m probably going to run out of stuff after a couple of weeks). But in the end, Mr. Carless is the one who calls the shots.

Speaking of the Tokyo Game Show, the damn thing finally kicks off tonight (since its already tomorrow in Japan right now). As previously mentioned, it promises to be a big one since it’s the last big showing for all the major players before the long awaited next-gen showdown goes down (and in less than two months). Actually, Sony is giving their keynote speech as I type this (Microsoft had theirs yesterday), but I’ll simply wait till tomorrow or Monday before going into all that. First let me just get through a few odds and ends from the past week….

- Though I have to mention this now, since I still can’t believe how fucking insane it is: Sony’s going to release two versions of Gran Turismo for the PlayStation 3 in the near future, Premium & Classic. Neither is a “true” sequel; GT 5 comes out in 2008 or something.

Premium will be a GT5 prologue, which will come with two courses and 30 cars (there was a GT4 prologue for the PS2 as well, which was also a sneak peak at the finalized game, with some behind the scenes stuff as well) and Classic, which is meant to be a mostly online experience, will have no cars or course. But the game will have up to 750 cars and 50 tracks for purchase. Each car will apparently cost between 50-100 yen, which is about 43 to 85 cents, while courses will be 200-500 yen, or approximately $1.71-$4.26. Cars cannot be earned by winning races in the game, like in previous Gran Turismos, you HAVE to buy and download them. That is absolutely ridiculous. So basically, for the same amount of money you spent for Gran Turismo 4, which gave you a bunch of cars and tracks, though you had to unlock most of it by, you know, playing the damn game, now you’ll simply be getting 1/36th as much.

Or to put it in simpler terms, to match the same amount of content of the previous PS2, you you’ll literally have to spend over $500-845 (figures provided by IGN), which is almost or even over the price of the console, which again is already $600. Once more, ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AND FUCKING INSANE. Also, hooray for microtransactions! And thank you Oblivion horse armor.

Plus, as ShaperMC also pointed out to me: “I don’t know if you are aware of the tedium that would come with selecting, purchasing, agreeing to pay for, queueing up, then repeating all that for the content the size of GT4. It was pretty irritating to do it for the 20 or so cars in RR6, and they were free.” If anyone ever needed to flat out hate Sony, this here is it.

- Want to know once more why I don’t play games online? Because I play video games to forget about the assholes I have to deal with in real life, so the last thing I want is to play with them. Case in point, check out this interview with a guy who cheats at games, and is fucking proud of it. It’s chock full of all sorts of wonderful stuff…

Aeropause: “Besides Halo 2 are there any other games at which you cheat?”

Schmuck5000: “I play BF2 and some Counter Strike. I cheat at both but it?s hard to get away with in Counter Strike. People who play CS are such babies about that stuff. The other players are just jealous p***ys who wish they had the ability to cheat.”

Aeropause: “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Schmuck5000: “What kind of freaking question is that for this kind of interview? How does me having a girlfriend relate to cheating?”

- And speaking of angry gamers, many are well aware that Capcom’s zombie beat ‘em up, Dead Rising, which for the time being is the reason to own a Xbox 360, is almost impossible to play on standard definition television sets due to the in-game text being rendered for HD set. At first Capcom said they were going to release a patch but they said they weren’t. Also not helping is how the game’s director in a recent interview with EGM was asked about this problem, and his response was basically: “LOL get a HD television set.”

Well here’s a 1UP article that touches upon the problem, but scroll down and check out the comments from the members of the 1UP community, which includes: “people without hi-def TVs have no business playing 360 games anyway”.

Also, check out some of the comments for 1UP’s clarification on Wii’s region encoding (btw, the system is apparently not going to be region free as previously stated… I’m still confused by the whole thing really): “only import geeks love importing, if they love it so much, move to Japan and get the heck out of US”

Hence why I do not speak to anyone in any game store I got to, let along make eye contact.

- One additional 1UP story, and proof that sometimes big game companies do listen to the consumers (though the two previous items sure makes it seem not the case these days). It would seem that the possibility of Same & Max coming to the Wii is not at all an impossibility.

- According to a recent issue of Play magazine a sequel to Radiant Silvergun/Ikaruga is on the way (this site here also mentions it). Dave Halverson, the man behind Play. has behind some countless crazy and outlandish rumors in the past (he was also behind the much beloved hardcore gaming tome, Gamefan magazine), and even though his track-record has been less than stellar over the year (okay, its been downright shitty), he is pretty close with Treasure (Gamefan was indeed the first American publication to give Gunstar Heroes and all their subsequent games tons of attention), so maybe he might right about this.

Play also states that Radiant Silvergun was always supposed to be a trilogy, which is news to me, but I could honestly care less… another original shooter from Treasure would be something to totally kill for. I would imagine that it would be yet another amazing take on the shooter genre, but if it was to go back to the original and be a true next-generation successor to RS… you don’t even want to know what I would do to get my hands on such a thing.

- Speaking of shmups, someone over at the Insert Credit forums passed along this: Shoot the Core, a shmup blog. Very nice! This particular entry is about Ether Vapor which the author describes as a cross between Einhander and Thunder Force V, which really REALLY makes me wish I had a MacBook right now so I can play it and all the other awesome doujin shooters I’m missing out on.

- Here’s the latest trailer for Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. And it’s… pretty to the point. Plus it totally validates Mike (O’Connor)‘s whole “Japan = soul cancer” theory. Plus the thing’s gonna cost $80 f’n dollars in Japan! But hey, what else are pervs gonna spend their money on?

- Time for a bunch of game related YouTube vids, including…

… a Hard Gay refernece/in-joke from the new Tingle RPG.

… all the very best parts of that old crappy Legend of Zleda cartoon.

… someone unlocking the Master Hand from the original Smash Bros for the N64 which claims to be legit but is probably a hack.

… and anyone who knows me is well aware for my love for fatalities in fighting games. The shittier and more obscure the game, the better. Here’s a nice compilation clip for Blood Storm.

- And here’s some “wacky” game related Photoshops, courtesy of the Gaming Age Forums. It was recently revealed what the boxes for Wii games are supposed to look like, so a bunch of people came up with ideas for their own games, and here are a few of my personal faves…

Plus here’s a small-ish one, but still pretty neat nonetheless…

- Elsewhere at NeoGAF, check out this one guy’s attempt at making his black DS Lite less shiny by using a nail file and other tools to buff the system.

Before:

After:

The thread is worth checking out simply for people’s reactions. A few become legitimately upset and uneasy by the sight. And I gotta admit, the in-between pics are pretty crazy.

- Finally, for the two of you out there on planet earth who hasn’t seen it yet, here’s pics of a Super Mario Bros themed wedding cake that was all the rage this past week. I had about 11 different friends send me the same link since Monday, and for good reason: it’s hella cool.

4 comments

09/15/2006

In Today’s News…

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

- I’m still trying to sift through all the Wii facts, figures, discussions, and bitching. And there is a TON of it. Not helping is how bit and pieces of information are constantly being clarified, revised, or simply taken back due to sloppy reporting. Which has in turn led to heated emotions and mud-slinging among a few.

Anyway, the only new stuff that I know about is how the Europeans are totally getting hosed: not only do they get their systems last, but it going to cost them 249 Euros, which is about $339 American. Ouch. And they get theirs last, sometime in March.

Also, its been reveled that purchasing Virtual Console games (as well as the system’s Opera browser which makes no fucking sense, and is just another thing that I have to check up on) will be handled via Wii points. Still not clear how they will be purchased… perhaps in stores, sorta like Apple iTunes cards and Xbox Live cards. I believe I also heard that people who buy the classic controller will get a ton of points as well, so they may come with certain other purchases, most likely games.

Hey, want to hear my idea, something that’ll make every Nintendo fan across this country very happy? How about letting them “cash in” on all the times they’ve registered Nintendo products in the past? In Japan, whenever you register a game, you get points which can be used towards totally awesome shit in their Club Mario program, and since we’ll never get to see an iota of all the cool shit they’re getting, this could be a nice way of saying “We’re sorry.”

And as expected, people are still bitching and moaning about the price and other assorted details. Though this older Penny Arcade strip does an even better job of encapsulating the sometimes screwed up logic (and needless venom) that most diehard games exhibit.

Oh real quick, Zelda for the GameCube has been delayed till December, with no real explanation given, but anyone with common sense can figure out that its just a move to sell more Wii’s. And here’s a neat photo spread that shows the Wii-mote with the rest of the “family”.

- Nintendo’s not the only thing making news, believe it or not. First off, the latest Sega Ages titles have been announced, which includes The Monster World Collection and Virtual On.

Finally, a chance to play Monster World 4 on a television! I’m still pissed that it never came out in America. Also, here’s hoping for pixel-perfect port of Virtual On, though I have to wonder how it’ll control on a PS2. Despite the fact that the Saturn pad wasn’t anything like the arcade cab’s Twin Sticks, it still played amazingly well (far more so that Dreamcast’s Oratorio Tangram). You know, I’ve had Virtual On Marz, the PS2 only Virtual On game forever now and I have yet to give it a spin (I had heard that it sucked, but I got it cuz I’m a Virtual On fanboy, plus it was dirt cheap at the time).

- So Seaman 2 details have finally emerged. And it’s pretty…wow. 1UP.com has the details…

The premise in Seaman 2 remains largely the same — you’re still supposed to interact with a virtual pet — except that this time around your creature is basically a mini neanderthal man. As the story goes, a species of these prehistoric mini-men were found to have lived in Peking China. A company in Moscow took their bones and created a factory to clone them and mass produce them as pets. 3,000 of them have been created so far. You’re one of the lucky first to have one of them.

The screenshots simply have to be seen to be believed.

- The original PaRappa The Rapper is being ported to the PSP. That’s funny, I sorta assumed that it would be one of the PSone games that you’d be able to download and emulate for the system. The port doesn’t seem to have any extras… maybe the graphics are better/sharper? I guess I?m annoyed because if the original was simply released as was, like all the other PSone games, it would be cheaper for the consumer. Hmmm…

- Robin pointed this out yesterday: remember me mentioning how there’s supposed to a brand new PSone game set to debut at the show, and according to IGN, its Metal Slug 6? Which just came out on the PS2 the other day. Plus its based upon Atomiswave hardware, and considering that the original Neo Geo hardware barely cut it on the PSone… yeah.

- Speaking of SNK, the AM Show is also taking place right now (that’s the yearly super big big arcade trade-show), and KOF XII was announced. Very nice…

- According to someone over at the Insert Credit forums who’s been played and beat Mega Man ZX, the game apparently attempts to bridge the storyline gap between the Zero and Legends timeline. Very interesting…

- And just because I just came across it literally a minute ago at NeoGAF, here’s a scan featuring the next Phoenix Wright game for the DS, featuring some new hot-shot lawyer.

- Something else which I just came across, over at IC this time, here’s a sad reminder of yet another awesome game that we missed out on in the States.

- Oh, for those who’ve been wondering why I haven’t said anything about games coming out for the iPod, the reason why I haven’t said anything, despite being an avid portable gamers and Mac person, its because… I don’t have a video iPod! Also I just haven’t had the chance to really investigate. Sorry.

- At last, footage of Jeff Minter’s lastest game in action. It’s basically Tempest 4,000 (hits of acid).

- Finally, I know only a very few are going to understand this, but for those of you who are familiar with Street Fighter 3 and the “legendary” EVO match from a few years back, enjoy.

3 comments