FRIDAY
Spent the afternoon going to various game shops in a search of Technic Beat, which after delays, and even doubts, finally came out. Since I knew some folks who wanted a review, I tried obtaining a copy from Mastiff directly, but was unable to get even a response. I really shouldn’t bitch since I know the folks at Mastiff are probably awfully nice, and it must be work super hard to procure, localize, and distribute high quality but low profile Japanese titles, especially in a market that’s more or less run by Sony and EA. Though one has to wonder how long they’re going to survive if there seems to be very little effort put into helping those who want to evangelize the game and really wants to see it succeed.
Plus, I was not looking forward to running around the city in a mad search for yet another quirky Japanese title that no one had heard of, and especially with Halo 2′s release finally at hand. Katamari Damacy pretty much used up all that energy. So I just hit two stores, didn’t find it, and simply said fuck it. Plus it was the end of a crazy week and I was exhausted.
Later that evening, I went out to Jersey to hang out with MK at her place. The original plan was to catch the Incredibles, but since my stomach was being temperamental, I figured it was best to simply stay at home. Though we had no trouble entertaining ourselves, especially since MK has Father Ted on DVD!
SATURDAY
So we caught the movie the next day, along with Robin and MK’s friend Audrey. I won’t waste time going on and on about how phenomenal the film is on every level imaginable since you’ve either seen it already and know this as fact, or have heard everyone else state the same things. I won’t say it’s my favorite Pixar film, at least not yet, but it’s certainly up there. I just love how certain scenes, like the ones with Mr. Incredible at his day job, looked very real, in a stop motion kind of way. Plus, I totally dug the 007 vibe, especially with the music, and certain key camera movements. It’s extremely subtle, but anyone familiar with 60′s Bond flicks knows what I’m talking about.
And of course, there was an annoying kid sitting behind us all who wouldn’t shut up. If we were in New York, the mother would have been some ghetto trash who would have told her child to “Shut the fuck up! Don’t make me beat the shit out of you!” But in this case it was some pampered and spineless soccer mom who let her child just go on and on, since she was probably afraid that telling the brat to be quiet would fuck him up for life. It’s bad when a kid is talking so loudly when other kids his age find his shit annoying. But the movie was so amazing that I was able to tune it out; it was that good. Also, they didn’t play the Episode 3 trailer beforehand, and I don’t know why, but I’m sorta glad.
Later in the evening we all headed to Delaware for a (week after) Halloween costume party. Despite the odd timing, it turned out to be a total blast; it almost felt like one of those parties you see in teen movies, especially since there was mostly college kids in attendance, all drunk, all in wacky costumes, and all trying to hook up. This time I went as a Mexican wrestler who ran for congress but lost. MK was a sexy John Wilkes Booth, and Morgan, MK’s crazy friend whom I met during my SPX trip, was a sexy Abe Lincoln. Audrey was a fairy; one of the funnier moments was when she “brushed wings” with some girls dressed like a dark angel and I made them do a “flap-off” and they did! But the real star of the show was Robin who came dressed in a plain cardboard box with “Big Stupid Box” scribbled on front. When the crowd some him, they all went totally nuts (one guy even called it “legendary”). The best part was seeing people shove crackers, pizza, and beer into the eye hole, which I guess most people thought was the mouth. When I voiced my concern that Robin was going to get diarrhea, some dude dressed like a Caesar exclaimed “You’re officially my favorite person here!”and high fived me.
Other standouts at the party include some guy dressed like a punk from a Mad Max flick. When I asked him if he was from Road Warrior or Thunderdome, he simply said “I wanted to dress like Bugs Bunny, but I really didn’t pay attention to the cartoons.” Another person was this girl who, besides being a robot programmed to make drinks and do the bunny hop, was the party’s official drunk girl. At one point she started chugging a bottle of jagermeister and immediately threw up in the kitchen sink, with plenty of people eating food all around (much like during Team America, I covered MK’s ears and eyes). And drunk girl immediately asked for more beer. Later on she offered folks a glimpse of her panties, which evolved into her pulling down other people’s pants to stick her finger into their assholes. Plus she tumbled down a flight of stairs really hard. The girl who’s house we were at exclaimed “Why didn’t she just loosen up and slide down the steps?!”
There was a contest to vote who had the best costume and MK and Morgan won 2nd place! Robin should have placed (he was clearly a favorite), but when one of the winners was the aforementioned dark angel, drunk girl was quite vocal with her suspicion of nepotism. But the definite highlight was when some guy went into a diabetic fit and an ambulance was called in. It’s amazing how misinformation can spread, even among a small group; when one person asked what was going on, the first thing you heard was “He’s having a diabetic fit” which changed to “Fuck that, he’s drunk” to “Dude, I bet he’s on heroin.” to “Yeah, he’s totally on angel dust for sure.” Immediately, all the underage kids bolted due to fear of the cops showing up. Meanwhile I caught two girls who really did have hard drugs (cocaine) panic and try to figure a good place to stash the stuff. Everyone else quickly got out of their costumes… guess no one wanted to look stupid in front of the paramedics. After they finished up, the mood was rather somber, so to pick things up, the hostess popped in some porn, but it tuned out to be pretty nasty. But drunk girl’s commentary throughout was pretty funny.
All in all, a great party. In fact, I think I enjoyed myself perhaps more so than any other New York party in years. It’s hard to say why, but I guess it goes down to the fact that many New Yorkers simply do not know how to have fun. They’re either way too concerned with maintaining a certain image to enjoy themselves, or are afraid of mingling with a different social strata.
SUNDAY
I work up on the living room floor of the place to the strangest dream I’ve had in a while. I forget the first 75%, but the latter portion has me discovering Susan Sarandon was my next door neighbor who wanted me to smoke pot with her and her really sketchy friend. We had to travel in the woods and on side roads in the dead of night to reach the bottom of some highway overpass to smoke up. Next thing you know, we get attacked by some large animal, I’m running fast as hell into the darkness and down a steep slope, and end up at the corner of 42th St and 8th Ave, starring right at the Port Authority, which was holding a Tool concert. And among the large crowd were huge figures, the kind you see at parades or festivals, which people carry around via sticks, but they looked like scout troopers from Return of the Jedi, if they were anthropomorphic dogs…
We all got up, helped clean the house a bit, and headed out. Breakfast was the same place as dinner the night prior: Wawa’s, which MK promised we would visit at least once during my trip to Jersey. Once again, I have to bitch about New York: Wawa’s simply reminded me of how shitty and overpriced all the food is here. And after a sleepy drive back to New Jersey, I was dropped off at Hoboken, took the PATH to the city, got home, had a shower, and almost immediately went out again. The Advantage was playing in Willamsburg and Raina Lee recommended that I check them out. Basically, they’re another one of those rock bands that covers video game tunes.
Now anyone who knows me is well aware of my love for game music. Plus I’m totally into the remixing scene. So naturally, I’d be a sucker for the Advantage, right? Wrong. Actually, garage bands playing old NES tunes has been one of the more annoying side effects of the mainstream embracing gaming, especially the past. Seems like any hack can play the Super Mario theme on a bass guitar and look “cool.”
Plus, continuing on my “I hate New York” train of thought, I absolutely loath Willamsburg. I avoid going there like it’s the plague. What’s my beef precisely? The people, of course. They simply try way too hard to be artsy fartys and cool. Plus I love how the main drag has all these stupid clothing boutiques that has stuff that 90% of the neighborhood can’t afford. I know the people there get off on the fact that they’re all “artists”, but in my artist days, I could barely afford my one meal a day of ramen, so how these folks manage to maintain their strict diet of ultra trendy vegan eats, let alone the $3,3000 rent for a studio is beyond me. And being makes me positively ashamed to be wearing black, plastic framed glasses.
But, I trust Raina, plus we rarely get to hang out, so I went anyway. I got to the place early enough to catch some of the opening bands, including the last couple songs from the first act (I forget their name) and they were pretty decent. The second act had a really pretentious name (narcissist-something) so it’s no surprise that the singer seemed like a total dick. He took like twenty minutes between songs to fine-tune his guitar (which dragged their act on forever) and acted (and spoke) like the second coming. Plus he had two mikes for no good reason. But thing is, they were actually pretty fucking good, hence why I really wish I remembered the name. And the drummer was amazing; he was going at it so hard that his drum set broke down like twice.
As for the Advantage themselves, they were okay I guess. I’m beginning to believe there’s an unwritten law for any band that does game tunes that they have to do a song from Castlevania, Ghost & Goblins, and/or Contra. There were a few interesting and obscure covers, but every time I was close to being hooked, they pulled old something totally clich?d (thank God they didn’t do the theme from Zelda, or I would have lost it). And their rendition of the Wily Castle theme from Mega Man 2 was a total cluster fuck. But the obligatory Contra song was actually damn good, they did a tune from Metal Gear (I think) which had an amazing segue into the dungeon tune from Zelda, plus their Super Mario 2 tune was super tight. Overall, I have heard better, though if they fine tuned themselves a considerable amount, and continue pursuing untapped games for inspiration, they just might be able to set themselves away from the rest.
But that last part will never happen, as evidenced by the crowd. After all, they all went nuts for each song, though it was more of a self-congratulatory “Hey, I remember that tune! I must be so hip!” than enthusiasm for the actual songs. Mind you, I’m just annoyed that most of these folks are probably the type to scoff at the idea of hearing the source material with any ounce of seriousness. But the one thing I have to deal with is being able to separate the material from its fans…
MONDAY
I went looking for Technic Beat, but since it was the eve of Halo 2′s release, it was totally pointless and frustrating. Here’s yet another reason why I can’t stand New York City: getting games here is an absolute nightmare. And it been made a 1000% worse with zero mom and pop game stores left around (R.I.P. Game Express). So I ended up snagging a copy on eBay, but not I’m worried; in my mad rush to buy a copy, I didn’t realize that there’s no pic for the game, always a slight tip-off if an auction is bullshit or not. The guy does have a 100% so perhaps I shouldn’t be too worried…
As for Halo 2, to commemorate it’s release, many stores opened its doors on midnight last night. I was asked by one outlet to cover the event at the Time Square Toys R Us, but especially after seeing pictures from the scene, I’m ever so happy I said “Thanks, but no thanks.” As one GAFer put it best, “… and this is why I’m often ashamed to be a gamer.” Again, most people assumed that I would happy to do so, or at least think something like this is cool. Well it’s not. Sorry, but I’d much rather wait in line all night long, and in the bitter cold, with a bunch of Harry Potter, or even Star Wars fans, than a bunch of pissy gamers. Especially Halo 2 fans; I have no problems with Halo, I know it’s an excellent game, but there’s a difference between hanging out with strangers and talking about that awesome feeling you get when you get your Katamari big enough to have a rainbow stick to it, and that time I blew “poopscoooper69″‘s head clean off on Xbox Live.
And lastly, now that Halo 2 is out, I can finally shop at an EB or Gamestop without some douchebag asking if I want to pre-order the fucking thing.
So as for last night, I instead simply had dinner and saw a movie with my friend Marc who was celebrating his birthday. We saw Sideways, which turned out pretty good.
TUESDAY
With all the stuff going on, and social engagements to keep up, it’s been a real struggle to keep up with things, such as the book proposal and following up on assorted projects. Plus I’m totally behind on my web surfing, though I did come across a kick ass cover gallery of Lois Lane comics.
I still haven’t had the chance to watch the Super Milk Chan show which I taped on Sunday. I heard that it wasn’t very good; I did manage to catch the last ten minutes, and it did look pretty retarded. Also, I heard that Squid Billies show was actually some huge prank. Nice one Adult Swim, nothing funnier than stupid in-jokes among three guys at the studio… Plus, I heard the new Simpsons was really bad, even for them these days. Yikes.
And later tonight is another IGDA NY chapter meet. More beer and networking, Whopee!
