Hirano Aya Gets the Gold!

Spoof of a Spoof of a Spoof...

Because Pratical Jokes Can't Be Taken Too Far...

Little Busters! Not the Pillows...

Little Busters is Key/Visual Arts new game. Well new in the sense that I just discovered it so technically it's just their newest game. I have not played this one at all and much like previous Key/Visual Arts games I'm hoping for an anime series but this one really has potential to knock it out of the park. It was HEAVILY hyped before release and from the materials I've seen so far about this...it's pretty darn good. Despite the above image, yes there are a bunch of "uber-cool-shonen" doodes in the game. I simply choose to ignore them...so nyaaah~! Oh and for clarifications sake this is a non-H title though I'm pretty sure there will be an H version someday when the sales start to slow on this thing.

The story is almost like a "moe Fight Club" though it's not strictly male endorsed. People are used to shows about delinquent High Schoolers pummeling each other in secret fashion but I think this is the first time maybe that they decided to make a moe game out of it. Good call as the game images look great and it gives you more to do other than sit there and contemplate who you should be going for. The intro song is pretty cool and very different than their pass work, it's a nice change of pace.

The Anatomy of Moe

What makes a good moe character is a topic of immense discussion and scrutiny amongst the otaku(nerd) kind. So what makes a good moe? After viewing many many shows of this topic and spending extensive time observing galge (no really...seriously I was just...research...yeah...) it's come to my attention that what makes a character moe CAN be categorized. After all the archetype will appear over and over in mass media and be instantly recognizable so the moe in theory should be too.

So what makes a girl moe? Number one of all the things I've seen, this is maybe one of if not the most important : they have to be STUPID. Ok, too strong a word. Let's try...mental age deficiency. If they have the mentality of a 6 year old, you've scored yourself a moe! There's nothing better to an h-obsessed otaku than a teenager stupider than himself. After all, it's a security blanket for those who are lacking confidence knowing that your preferred gal-pal is a needy child trapped in a teenager's body. As a bonus, most moe girls tend to make random noises as their emotional range changes...usually on the off side. If you ever hear a stray "Uguu~..." then you know for sure that your moe girl is not feeling too well...sort of like a pet kitten.



Which leads to the next item of almost parallel importance...eccentricity! A stupid girl with an eccentric personality creates a conundrum. In real life they'd be horrifically annoying to murderous degrees. However in the world of the otaku, this is perhaps the most endearing type of girl there is. Does she like starfish to a sickening degree? Perhaps it's aliens? A belief in the supernatural? An insane animal lover? It could be collecting paper clips as long as it's brought to the hyper extreme spectrum. Happy, sad, angry or overzealous...you need to find someone with a quickly identifiable personality trait and then crank it up 1000 times and you'll see exactly how a moe girl behaves.



But why is it that they all behave in such a manner? Ah, here comes the answer. Tragedy. Stone cold, harsh, bitter reality raping their childhoods of any sense of safety. What I mean is a loss in the family or something equivalent or greater you damn perverts! Anyway, did they lose a childhood friend? A parent? A favorite pet? Perhaps they're even the ones that were lost! This great tragedy must have the averse effect of creating the eccentric personality to hide their past sorrows because it's so great that you wonder how they're NOT in therapy. Take heart, childhood friends are usually the BEST candidate for this requirement. If you knew her more than 5 years prior to your reunion...then holy hell she's got baggage that'd make grown men cry!

This brings us to the otaku himself. Yes that's right, here's where the appeal occurs. The otaku is fascinated in the idea of being there for others. Despite their lack of confidence in dealing with the opposite sex, they strive to be understood and needed. The moe girl is perfect then for the otaku as they can now fantasize about being a facilitator emotionally. Breaking through their mental guard walls, the otaku strikes a forward attack of affection to crack that eccentric shell and find the incredibly girly (and sexy) core within. At least that's what they'd like to do. However seeing as in real life we all have problems that require hours of yapping into our friend's ears the otaku sees no hope of doing such a thing in the 3D world and hence has regressed into watching (or playing) stories where they are indeed this individual of incredible ability.

Any other items aren't necessary but they can greatly enhance the moe girl's appeal. She can even be a fluffy rainbow dinosaur that soars on magic clouds of licorice dust and it wouldn't matter. Because in truth she's simply an insecure girl in search of that guy DESTINED to solve all of their mental deficiencies. Of course once he does, the only difference in said girl ends up being that they love said guy yet they continue to behave in exactly the same manner sans all the feverish blushing.

Yes, there's a lot of facts in this writing that probably make no sense. But isn't that the point? I've spent enough time explaining this to ya...so off you go into the world to find your own moe girl. Uguu~...

Foreigners

Something to Watch this Fall

A lot of people are starting to or have been feeling that anime has been dull lately. Copies of older more successful formulas are springing out of the ground in rapid succession and it quickly gets confusing when it comes to picking out the good from the bad. Now that the new season of TV anime has passed a sufficient amount of episodes, one can gauge a little better just how the season will pass. Just like in the NBA, after 15 games we now know for sure...the Knicks are absolute GARBAGE, this is what I've been watching so far...

Minami-Ike
One of the shows I can't stop laughing at. Though the first episode wasn't very funny to me, as the show went on I started to get it more and more. It's hilarious if you liked shows like Azumanga or School Rumble even, but Minami-Ike will hopefully have a long lasting appeal and broadcast. Maybe we'll even find out one day what's up with Sensei and Ninomiya-kun.

CLANNAD
Based on the PC non-H galge, CLANNAD I think has the most emotionally resonant story of all the shows this season. It's being made by Kyo-Ani so it was expected to be good but wow, the characters are a lot of fun and they devoted a good number of episodes early on to Fuko-chan this time so it was a real tear-jerker.

Blue Drop
It's really hard to put my finger on this one, it's so mundane yet there's a lot going on here. They are developing the story at a very slow pace and really the setting of the story might be off putting to fans of faster paced shows. I'm still contemplating whether I like it or not though maybe it's one of those things you see from start to finish to really get a feel for?

Bamboo Blade
Is it a sports anime? Is it a slice of life comedy? Or is it both!? Do they dare? It hasn't piqued my interest in kendo, that's for sure but it's good enough. The characters are very lively and being a fan of tokusatsu live action shows helps your enjoyment of this one as it's the running joke. Though I have to wonder...what the hell is up with MiyaMiya and Dan-kun!? Seriously, seeing that would really piss me off...

The flavor of the decade is still moe. It seems that's what sells and that's what's going to continue into next year. Code Geass will return soon to reclaim it's spot from Gundam 00 for a season when that ends and Suzumiya Haruhi is preparing to blow your mind with a HIGHLY...highly anticipated sequel. If you haven't read the translated novels in some way...well get ready cause this next storyline is insane (I think it's awesome!).

* LOL updated. Minami-ke is name the of the show. Minami-ike is "south pond". Here is a funny video to divert my stupidity :

I Am Begging...BEGGING!!! For a Change...

The New York Knicks played in the first NBA game ever. Since then they've had a decent history as a professional team I would say. Hot in the late 80s-early 90s, the awesome beginning to the 70s with 2 championship banners. Well it's time to stop living in the pass. It's been. Since 1999. Seriously, how much worse could this team get!? Did you guys even see the Celtics game last night!? They were down at times by 50 points!! What is this!? FIBA in the '92 Olympics!? What the hell happened!? I thought that they were bad but this is just BAD...HORRIBLE...absolutely appalling!

To all those people that bought season tickets, jerseys, merchandise and bobble heads...you just wasted your money and you're probably banging your heads on the wall right now. I sympathize with you...actually no I don't. You should have stopped supporting this crap three years ago. I didn't watch much in the early years, not until LeBron got drafted anyway. In that time however I checked in with NY and I knew that there'd be hard times but how much can one take? This is bottom of the barrel for modern NBA teams. It doesn't matter that the Bulls have a worse record, the NY just SUCK. HARD.

There's a LeBron James jersey hanging in my room right now and damnit I now feel justified jumping ship at the 2003 draft. Everyone knows I used to be big on the Knicks. Hell I even had the damn Ewing's shoes, yeah those shoes. It's really sad that now that I'm out of school and finally decided to go to a real NBA game I can't because I'd just be paying the check for these losers representing this city. The hilarious thing is supposedly these guys are all capable of scoring in double figures and they couldn't even get 50 points till the last 4 minutes of the game. You might as well just get the Harlem Globe Trotters to play for them at this point, at least we'll be entertained by goofy antics and we wouldn't have to sit through Thomas looking lost and a whole team embarrassing themselves cause of the lack of leadership.

Oh man all I need is to hear Stephen A Smith on ESPN destroy this one tomorrow cause you KNOW he has something to say about this. I feel so bad for David Lee, Nate Robinson, Renaldo Balkman and the other young guys on this team...they should get themselves traded and out of this city before it ruins their careers. I was upset they traded Trevor Ariza to Orlando and though since then he's been traded again he is better off for it. Channing Frye is counting his blessings that he's in Portland...at least he should.

PLEASE FIRE ISIAH THOMAS! Blow up this team and get rid of everyone, start from scratch. Even if we have scrubs and rookies playing, we can always use the excuse that we have a young team. It'd make everyone in NY feel better about themselves...seriously....PLEASE...

Wha!?

http://www.dannychoo.com/fauna_detail/eng/663/Sundome/

funny stuff I tell you.

BA! NA! NA!

Rondo Of Boorud

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

I love zombie movies. They provide the perfect scenarios for what NOT to do during an immanent zombie pandemic. From farmhouses, shopping malls, army bases and even large suburban cities we find out all the follies of man as they fumble to survive when the most likely answers are usually the simple ones. And then there is the dark side of zombie movies as shown above. Enough said...

This is Super fucking metal!!!

Calling Infinity Ward, Your Servers SUCK!

Call of Duty 4 is an excellent shooter. Awesome storyline, great graphics, smooth gameplay...at least on the PC. We get to the consoles and massive issues arise when it comes to getting online to play the damn game. Though I'm not sure about it on the XBox 360 side of things, the PS3 version has just 1 horribly crippling problem. The gameplay itself is basically lagless but that's if you can get on the damn servers at all to play the game!

It's been 3 or 4 days now since the servers went wonky at Infinity Ward. Tons of gamers that purchased this game just to play online have been waiting out bogus Download Game Settings... messages and dropped connections. When you can actually play the game it usually takes a good 10 - 15 minutes before you can even get on. Surprisingly the SIXAXIS is not bad for aiming in the game. I thought it'd suck but so far I haven't had much of a problem with it. But it just goes to show that I would rather stick with the PC version at this point as I normally do with shooters. IF needs to shape up about the online servers soon or they're gonna lose a LOT of customers.

Jumping the Shark, Art?

It's come to my attention along with my "brilliant" Photoshop skill displayed here that jumping the shark has become an art-form. Resident Evil : Extinction is a prime example. Most people would assume it jumped the shark after part 2 (Apocalypse) but it wasn't necessarily a bad movie. It wasn't good either but it simply continued the legacy of Matrix-kick-to-the-zombie-dog-face action. Now we get to Extinction...

Honestly be happy if you saved your money so that you can burn it on something else like downloading vulgar e-porn from a pay to play website. I can't tell if they were intentionally TRYING to make a mockery of the Resident Evil franchise or they were going for the "so bad it's good" phenomenon because quite frankly the guy who wrote this must have gotten the idea while pushing out an exceedingly large @#$% on the toilet. Yeah...that's exactly how I feel about this movie.

Which brings up the question about why they seem to make it a point to jump the shark with everything these days. You don't have a good movie franchise unless you jump the shark, that way everyone will realize that the first two might not have been nearly that bad. Yet they seem compelled to do it with any movie, even Spiderman. Part 3 wasn't terrible, but it did have some pretty spectacularly stupid moments ("Hey is that my daughter up there? Let's all stand around!"). Or look at the new slew of versus movies like Alien vs. Predator which potentially jumped the shark before it even got to the sequel which looks MILES away better than the first! At least it might wipe away nightmares of "Predator got a girlfriend" from part 1...ugh...

Gundam 00 ep. 4 - Clear Your Airspace for This One...

Some quick thoughts about the latest in the only constant running post I can think of doing. First up, they introduced some new characters. Soma Peers here is my favorite, she's totally a cold hearted killing machine from some Uber Mensche (they really do use that term) facility. She's definitely dead by episode 35 I'd assume, hopefully they get her into something that can compete with Setsuna (inevitably she will be fighting it out with him). They also introduce some Princess of a random Middle Eastern style country. Seems like Relena Peacecraft again...only a lot wussier and not as ugly.

There are moments when the art drops and some moments when it's comparable to the first 2 episodes. I guess we're finally hitting that lull where the secondary art teams concentrate on the characters while all the "cool" MS action takes all the budget. It happens to the best of series but it's surprising that there haven't been many majorly flawed scenes yet. Kudos to HD anime.
Custom Flag...how I want you on my shelf. Why does this show continue to show just how cool Graham is? Do they want us to like the "bad guys" that much? It seems counter intuitive to market the show to teen boys yet the most awesome character is the one most likely to die horribly as the series progresses. In the future I hope they don't just paint this as purely a black and white conflict but I'm pretty sure they will. Anyway, so Bandai...how's about an HG 1/100 Union Flag Graham Acre Custom? ^________________^

If Only Scott Baio was There...

Star Trek is way too optimistic

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pages/100907_11.html

Scientific exploration of outer space has in recent times ramped up. From the early days of just going to the moon to this amazing image taken in February of this year as New Horizon's Kupier Belt unmanned space craft flew by, we are finally seeing the fruits of labor from the astronomical community. The amazing thing about this image is for the first time we are seeing Jupiter in real color. The great Red Spot there however is no longer so great and red, could it be that after 300 years of nonstop storm and activity...much like the Great Dark Spot on Neptune, this monster of a "hurricane" (if we can even call it that) is finally...finally dissipating?

Using a gravitation sling shot effect of passing around the gravitational field of various planets, New Horizons has succeeded in becoming the fastest object we have ever shot into outerspace (much less created on our own planet). It's mission is to explore Pluto and the now discovered Kupier Belt objects, a series of hundreds/thousands?/millions? of planetary objects similar in size to Pluto itself. The mystery of the tenth planet in the solar system is now at a consensus, there is none. In fact we only have 8 planets and including Pluto a ton of smaller dwarf planets encircling our solar system. As we know it now anyway, by 2015, who knows what we'll spot out there?

So what are some of the new findings of the cosmos? Well for starters we are apparently almost entirely sure that the center of the Milky Way is a Super Massive Black Hole and that most every galaxy out there is governed by one.

Also in 3 million or so years the Andromeda Galaxy will be smacking into ours, if humans are still around and lucky this solar system will survive...and at worse case be sucked into the Black Hole of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Dark matter does indeed exist as Einstein predicted (though even he though it was too stupid to imagine).

Quasars are NOT star formations or any of the many theories that came before it, they are in fact Super Massive Black Holes that are "gluttonous". They're absorbing so much material and ejecting so much plasma that they seemed to be something else entirely.

There are now planets and dwarf planets in our solar system. Thanks to the new classification system of what a planet is we are down to 8 planets with Neptune being the furthest out and Pluto and Eris classified as the first 2 trans-Neptunian dwarfs while Ceres in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is also a dwarf planet.

So where are the little green men? Well, it's a tough one to answer but it seems we may never know. Light travels at a set speed and most telescopes are receiving light that is millions to billions of years old. Even if there are civilizations out there on alien worlds (and the probabilities suggest that there in fact are despite the rare earth theory) they may not be able to spot us as we are unable to see them. Covering the distance in light years is also daunting and perhaps a cosmic irony that we may never overcome. The idea that blackholes would be worm holes to other places is also out of the equation, a black hole is so incredibly dense it's literally the point of no return. You cannot escape one once you get too close. Of course if there ever is a search for life from our civilization, we'd better hurry...the longer we wait the further off everything else in the universe becomes.

Bonds on the Battlefield? How about Explodey Things?

Kidou Senshi Gundam : Senjou no Kizuna (Mobile Suit Gundam : Bonds of the Battlefield) is an arcade game that's a major hit with the Japanese. Based on the One Year War era of slow plodding nuclear fueled giants of destruction, Senjou (for short) has you pilotting your choice of Zeon or Feddie mobile suits from within a pod designed to emulate the cockpit of an MS. Pretty impressive as it's an experience that can't be emulated on a home system without a $200 controller like Steel Battalion.



What's even crazier about this game is that it's networked, the more pods your arcade has the more players can join. An 8 player vs. battle between teams of 4 isn't a rarity to be seen as the Gundam license itself is pretty big in Japan. My constant ramblings on this blog about Gundam should probably give you a clue as to how much (and how improbable) I want to play this thing. The controls seem to be based on the good old fashion dual stick tri-window setup. It even has that old classic White Base attack theme song all the old school viewers seem to love.

Is this only the first step? A glimpse into the future? After all, how many more years will it be before they adapt this into an army vehicle of some sort? Preprogrammed human-like motions coupled with the proper mechanical technology with a sufficient power source? It seems the Japanese already have the control scheme down...

Even crazier is what you do when you're not playing. They have a bench area where players sit and wait in a line and off to the side is a view screen for players to watch the other would-be pilots show their skill. Below the screen is a stats window I believe probably detailing the overall combat situation ladder style.



This guy Joshua Zimmerman explains it all very well. Youtube can at least give us a glimpse at what you'd like and the Japanese NEVER give you.

Gundam 00 ep. 3 - Now with Visual Aides!

Last time on Gundam Win~er...Gundam 00, we left Setsuna in a precarious state. Having finished his first sortie as a terrorist for Celestial Being, it hit a little close to home for our non-emo emo. Suddenly from a Union carrier comes the Union Flag piloted by MSWAD ace Graham Acre, ready to "put the moves" on Exia. So how was this episode?
The most interesting thing about this episode is that it exposes the weaknesses of our "heroes". Setsuna is obviously not a very stable person and his piloting skills to this point may be more attributed to his excellent technological advantage than his potential (of which he's bound to have something up his sleeve a la Newtype). Graham is my favorite of all the characters, he fights Exia with a skill level that previous cannon fodder hasn't shown in the series. I hope his reign as the new "Gundam-rival" isn't a miserable one.
We actually get to see the faux-Wing boys in civilian moments this episode followed by a revelation about their aforementioned inherent weakness as a unit. Still, it seems Celestial Being is determined to succeed with their asinine "war to end all wars" plot. It's kind of telling that this mentality hasn't given the fandom on various boards a reason to cheer for Setsuna and crew, in fact like me a lot of people seem to be rooting for Graham to find his "golden ticket" and hopefully defeating at least one of the plot protected yaoi-crew.
Plot protection not withstanding, Exia runs into trouble again as an obviously more well trained pilot exposes more of Setsuna's weaknesses as a pilot. Though both battles in this episode he surprises the enemy using the oft used beam saber, it's refreshing to see that the Gundam Meisters (ugh...I HATE typing that...) are not as invincible as you think. Setsuna himself seems to have an issue with people touching him which might indicate a real link with his Kurdish child soldier background (read a tiny bit about that irl, it's not pretty).
Next episode should be the debut of one silver haired gal whom we've all observed in the intro. My guess is she's the new Lalah Sun / Four Murasame / Stellar Louisier (ie. she's dead meat before ep. 35). However given that this is an all new director without ties to the original series...he might avoid that. Maybe...

Making War Fun for all Ages!

Seriously speaking, Call of Duty 4's demo hit PCs a few weeks earlier and it is an impressive wartime simulation if not an entirely realistic one. But here's the thing, I had thought that this was going to be slightly futuristic and thus a crock of bullocks when it came to weaponry. Lo-and-behold my military knowledge may be quite lacking but I looked it up and that is an M4. So the machine guns are real enough but what about the rest of the game?

Laser wars in night vision. This is just crazy, kinda makes one wonder what the Paris Hilton video might have been like if she were poor...in the middle east...during a terrorist sting operation. Still it's a cool visual to see all the laser pointers moving around. I freaked once or twice thinking the enemies had the same pointers so I thought I was being targeted. It is a nice way of allies being able to pick out exactly what direction you and your buds are aiming in.

There's one part of the demo that has you pick up what's called the "Javelin" which was a lock-on laser guided missile for mobile weaponry like tanks and helicopters. I didn't think that was real either after seeing it's ridiculous firing arc (the thing shoots straight into the sky and then turns dramatically crashing into the target from above). Then I saw this on youtube.com promptly demonstrating how much of an army n00b I be. Good times!

Brenden S. Kennedy!?

This is Totally Unreal

Unreal Tournament, one of the uber-shooter franchises for the PC once again rears it's not so ugly head. As one website described it, Unreal seems to be full of Gears of War rejects and graphically depending on your system the game itself can surpass even Gears' graphical splendor. Though that's according to Epic themselves and being that this is an FPS I would imagine that the graphics will indeed be impressive. As you can see from my very ugly screenshot (I can only take 1 at a time and believe me when I say it is HARD to get a good shot in this game while it's playing live. My best screen shot is one I took as I lost...that's rather telling) that even my system can push out a pretty impressive piece.

I do notice however that this may once again be one of those games where having HDR lighting means sacrificing anti-aliasing. It's not a big deal for those people with awesome setups who can bump up the resolution but for those of us who can only run games at a meager 1280 x 720 (ok...that is pretty high, but still...) I wonder if HDR is even worth it then? Though a few jaggies on a hi-res widescreen monitor is better than nothing. It's apparent though I need more RAM as 1 gig isn't sufficient to hold the frame rate at a stable pace. I can imagine that the PS3 version is being capped at 16 players online for that very reason. I did see a server claiming to be able to hold 256 players...though that's obviously NOT a good idea.

Unreal Tournament 3 returns us to the same exact game as previous renditions. What that means is it's the ultimate test of twitch shooting madness. Characters in UT run so fast at times it's hard to aim and snipers really are tested on their skills at that point. Imagine trying to play the game while finding time to hit the screen caps only to realize that you've got about .5 seconds to touch that button or you're minced meat. Hopping around and firing rockets or whatever you may have is once again the best option as the speed of the game is break-neck and forces players to almost spaz out in firing their weapons, sometimes with much luck you can get a kill or two off before you're eventually blown away by that one guy who has a Core 2 Quad + 8800GTSSUPERAWESOMEEDITION. The weapons return all unchanged except for the aesthetics but one thing I have to congratulate Epic on is the vehicles. That screenshot up there? That's something you can drive and as you can see from my perspective that was not a great place to be at all.

Over-all it's more of the same in the same way Halo 3 is more of the same but at the very least they decided that Gears of War looks so good that they should make UT3 look similarly impressive. For me, it's vomit inducing and I couldn't play it for more than 5 minutes. I'm sticking to Team Fortress 2.

Gundam 00 - Ep. 2 : Gundam Meisters

So episode two of the new Gundam series has been released and after watching it, I'm still rather unconvinced yet wondering curiously where this is going. In this episode we find out much more about the world situation which is ever important to any Gundam series. Understanding the political climate and the divisions in the world can outline the road map of the entire series. Here it seems in the near future as fossil fuels burned up on the planet, a gigantic orbital ring was formed in "less than a lifetime" to house the multiple millions of solar collectors to serve as fuel for the entire world. Because of this three super elevators to this orbital ring are created by the nations of the world who have banded together in three separate groups that constantly wage war on each other to protect their share of the energy supply.

It seems the technology level of this show is very much low tech, with the average mobile weapon moving like the slow plodding mechs from Mechwarrior. The Gundam have the advantage of plot-protection as they happen to have the most advanced technology in the GN reactor as they clearly move 200% faster and maneuver 100 times better in the sky than anything the regular armies can come up with. I do like that they don't seem quite that invincible as they do regularly take hits even from the tank like machines and require much backup from one another to succeed in their missions. Of course the bootlegged Zaku-tank looking mechs clearly show exactly why bi-pedal mobile weapons of this sort cannot function in a realistic war scenario in today's age.

I'm still confused though as they are hinting that Celestial Being is not just trying to stop all the wars by using their might. They seem to have a hidden agenda that they're clearly aware of and fully volunteering for. Another point is by the end of the episode they appear to be goading the nations of the world into a large conflict on purpose? It seems they are simply trying to create a greater terror to unite the world's nations as a common enemy can have that sort of affect on the world. This is not too much different than the end of Gundam Wing with the "war to end all wars" scenario. Now I have a SERIOUS problem with this idea...

World War II. At the end of WWII the world spun into a new nuclear age. The camaraderie between nations fell apart almost immediately because of the fear of this new weapon the United States had created. Ideologies ran rampant and the world was divided in two. No sooner had the world united to defeat the evils of the Nazis and their partners, the world crumbled into a mess of smaller conflicts due to paranoia. In short...they are still very much pursuing a very idealistic end to this series. Idealism itself is grand yet to suspend belief too much for the sake of story telling sometimes lead to a very unsatisfying conclusion. A lot of people call it being pessimistic however it's for this reason that many began watching Gundam in the first place.

End quote.

20,000 Leagues under the Monster Hunter

Wii's got a Golden Ticket!!!

Capcom has fulfilled prophecy, the one that states "our annoucement this fall will make your heads explode!! for today it is Official......Monster Hunter 3 will be on the Wii.

My first impression was....HOLY SHIT!!!what about PS3, so I went to the official PS japan site only to discover that they had taken down everything that had to do with
MH3, could this mean wii exclusive!!!..only time will tell.

Naturally, upon discovering this, I got a bit upset....for about 10sec before I realised, JESUS!! this is going to be awesome!!!. The more you think about it, the more you begin to realise how much better the experience will be!!! Think about it!
Sword and Shield, Bow and Arrow, Shield and Lance, you get the Idea, it's completely revolutionary!!,it's what MH should be evolving to.
I remember a time when I used to play "Bust a Move(Groove) for ps1 and I thought to myself "this would be so much more awesome if it ahd a mat" and WAH LA! DDR began to rule not just the dance gaming industry but the entire Arcade industry as well. I thought same thing about Guitaroo man, awesome game but if it had a Gee-tar that would be magically fantastical!! Along came Guitar Hero and you know the rest.
Now it seems its Monster Hunter's turn to evolve, not graphic wise(god I wish) but experience wise( much better than having better graphics), and if you ask me, I think we're looking a the beginning of a beauful new experience.

I'm in no way a fanboy of Wii or Nintento, as a matter of fact if I ever see Yoshi or Bowser in MH3 Im gonna Tomahawk throw my Wiimote at Iwata and nunchuck capcom in the face for letting the shit happen, but I'm sure it won't come to that...right capcom? =)

Anyways, I'n the end I think having MH on Wii is the right move. Wii is fun, cheap and motivated by innovation. I love my PS3, it's a powerhouse, but its just flat out expensive and soon to be gimped. 360, another powerhouse and my favorite system at the moment had the least likely chance at scoring MH simply because japan hates the conglomerate devil that is Microsoft, the evil organization hell bent on ruling the world.

So guys I guess it's time to get off our lazy asses and pretend like we're slaying real fucking dragons here!!! I wonder how they'll make the fuckin horn work?? =P.

Gundam 00, kidou!!

So Gundam 00 finally hits the airwaves in it's home country where bi-pedal automatons are the popular form of entertainment. After the magic of the internet and fanaticism allowed me to view the first episode, I can now finally make a good judgment on how much I may enjoy or not enjoy the series. I'll begin by outlining the pros of this show so far :

Pro : The intro song is by L'arc En Ciel. The animation is being done in HD video. Gundam.

Cons :
Ok I really have to wonder why it is that they decided to copy the story from Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing. They came to the conclusion in that series that using war to stop all wars is a ridiculous notion. Here we are in 2007 with another show where the first episode has 4 mysterious uber-Gundam mechs flying around destroying all sorts of mech-baddies with their oh so invincible turbo engines of winged doom and...well...we've all seen this before. It's not that much fun after the 22nd time. The show even pokes fun at how hypocritical the situation is with the group Celestial Being who are using their big guns to stop all arguing amongst the nations in the world. Unless the show is consciously trying to go somewhere with the idea of "Hypocritial Being" then I honestly don't think this could be all that good.

It's also become way too blatantly obvious that they're using the formula that worked for Wing to try and capture the 13 year old teens segment. But how are they achieving that? With more pretty girlie boys and ugly girls? How is a 13 year old boy preoccupied with the growing world of internet porn going to like watching a show with the most metro sexual cast since Code Geass? Setsuna seems destined to be another Heero Yuy clone with the same exact backstory and perhaps future growth as Sousuke from Full Metal Panic. His Gundam Meister (oh jeez...) mates all seemed predestined for lots of BAD bad yaoi fiction and the mech design has no sense of uniformity, preferring to mash a bunch of different cut and paste MS' into the show.
They should have just animated Unicorn...

Fungus Smash!!

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml

A gamma-bomb goes off and showers mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner in gamma-rays creating the monstrous yet misunderstood "Incredible Hulk". Everyone knows this story by now. What we know today about radiation differs from that origin greatly (ie. you just die) but this discovery may change that science in the near future. Freaky.

The Return...

Magic, Fairy Tales and Dinosaurs?!

It's Time to Clay More

http://www.hobbystock.jp/item/gallery/HBY-GCF-00001378

For around $50 + shipping this could be in your house around...who knows when. But when then becomes now, you shouldn't miss out on this. Probably going to be hard to preorder one of these on HLJ without having to fight for one.

Gizmondo Unintentionally Messed Up?

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/lego/lego-stephen-hawking-takes-flight-297408.php

Steven Hawking, if he isn't the most brilliant mind in the world right now then he's damn near close to it. Being the world's most famous physicist, he's getting the chance to go into outer space soon and it's probably an absolutely amazing experience to be able to do something like this. Someone thinks so. Someone also thinks Steven Hawking is one ugly @#$%. I mean he's not glamorous but their rendition of him is kind of wtf. Honestly it's probably unintentional but it is kinda freaky looking. Just take a look...it's like they watched one too many reruns of Short Circuit. I did see an awesome LEGO Batman at the NY Comic Con last year so good LEGO models are possibly if you have no life.

On a side note, Steven Hawking would probably find this humorous.

Discovery in the New World!

These pictures speak for themselves, I don't have to say anymore. Found the images on e2046.com's forum site.
I wants these NOW!!

Bioshocked!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

If you're ever gonna play Bioshock, please don't watch this fun review. If you're never gonna play Bioshock and you're a cynical PC Gaming bastard like I am, then this is one awesome review of the game that's most likely going to get game of the year in 7 categories for some bootleg cable channel reward show. I'm now returning to my cave in the ground as I'm most likely being hunted by Bioshock fanboys who can't stand to here anything even slightly bad about the "second coming"...

There Isn't Enough Monster Hunter

As mentioned below Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is killing all of our time in the whee hours of the morning. So here comes MORE MONSTER HUNTER. This is a newish (well old but newer) trailer for Monster Hunter Frontier, the Hunt continues for Japanese PC gamers not smart enough to purchase a PSP ^_^;. It uses Monster Hunter Dos as a base and basically brings that game as it is online with some nice additions. Those who have PSPs are getting roughly the same things however there are differences in exclusives. This PC version seems to have the rooster-rex (I call it that) wyvern as seen in the OST-book while the PSP release gets Tigrex as their exclusive creature. The town is also very different as the PC version is a large town created to hold literally up to 100 players at a time while the Freedom 2 gets the quaint and wonderful Pokke village. There's obviously more differences than that but it's good to know that if this hits North America, then there's going to be enough Monster Hunter for everyone! Perhaps a simple 360 port will be in the works?

Thanks to MH Freedom 2 I totally forgot I even have a blog >_<, anyway I found this awesome J-rap Song by SOUL'd OUT, yeah..these dudes are fucking awesome....

Gunpla Heaven!

This is so insane, this video is of a variety talk show where they introduce many topics just to chatter and perhaps get a laugh out of. Gunpla is insanely popular over in Asia so it's only natural that the layman wants to see exactly how Gunpla is made. Well, here's a sneak peak into the mythic world of plastic kits. Talk about overkill, I always joked that the technology inside a Master Grade Gundam can be replicated to make a real 1/1 scale weapon of war but in a couple of years this factory might just be able to pull it off. It's quite impressive to see actually, it's so high tech all for the sake of making a do it yourself plastic kit.

The talk show host in the red cosplaying as Char should have done it all the way with the mask and helmet, but the guy who believes he's really Amuro is hilarious as he sounds exactly like Amuro. What a loser lol. They actually have a 3D scanner for these things as well as a laser scribe that cuts a metallic mold for these kits, talk about insane precision. It's no wonder every MG kit comes roughly the same, unlike a lot of garage kits out there where imperfections and variations litter the crop. Keroro Gunsou would probably crap his pants (wait he doesn't wear any...) if he got to visit this place. The end part there is crazy. Apparently they can make those little 3 millimeter Gundam figurines with that laser scribing machine.

Can That Sword Get Any Bigger?

http://www.e2046.com/product_info.php?products_id=7252

The hunt will live on forever as soon as you get yourself one of these! And a bunch of Monster Hunter weapons!!

Something to Keep an "Eye On"

Unicorns Make Great Mecha Too

And finally do you hear that in the background? While watching the video, as soon as the Unicorn launches did you notice? Mikuru begins singing and it sort of goes with the video, how crazy is that!? This year is a decent year for Gunpla it seems after quite a few lately that have been less than stellar. Maybe Bandai will finally release the long rumored/wanted Hygog?

The Wrath of 'Los

http://www.hlj.com/product/HAP80430

Too bad I found out about this a little late, but this is getting exciting. More and more Monster Hunter goods are appearing on the market and this one is a pretty darn awesome rendition of the Rathalos. Too bad the picture is cropped so close because I can't see if it has folded wingspans or if he's in full flight form there. Either way, this gets a big thumbs up from the Bard.

Fun in the Sun 2007

I swear, first we have Korean Revolutionary Colonies, then Castlevania in Korea, NOW we've got fun in the sun. So...how exactly is this related to Spanish colonial conquest?

I bet Maggi didn't design those : http://maggi.new21.net/

Hope This Isn't Just a Fairy Tale

http://kotaku.com/gaming/psp/folklore-psp-in-development-291556.php

After changing into a fresh pair of pants, I can safely type now. Kotaku is reporting from yet another source that they've confirmed a PSP version of FolkLore (FolkSoul in Japan). I loved the demo, it might not be the best game in the world but as the Shining Wizard mentioned...the Bard loves fairy tale creatures. If this game pans out the way it should, then Gaming Republic may just redeem itself for the real historical giant crabs. Only time will tell.

The (Simple) Art of War

Some of the friends of the Blacksmiths have asked questions about Granado Espada as it's a game that isn't widely known to them as they aren't avid players of MMO games. So to answer these questions I've made 2 more small clips that demonstrate exactly how a multi-character system can function in the simplest setup. I started this game playing with the Elementalist (Warlock), Scout and Warrior. This combo is a simple tank and AoE (Area of Effect) setup which most MMO players are quite familiar with. The unique thing about GE is the ability to switch between 3 characters and control all or none of them at all. By simply pressing quick keys (Alt+E or spacebar) one can set the characters up to Patrol Mode which basically tells the AI to react to enemies nearby in attack mode, similar to placing Gambits on partners in FF12 but a little more advanced as you'll see.



In this clip I set up my Warrior and Scout in Patrol Mode. After they position themselves I hit F1 to select my Elementalist (Galatea) and then hit F9 to switch to Individual mode. Individual mode makes it so that any commands I input only effect the person I am currently in control of so obviously Select All mode gives the commands to all of them. In this mode however, I am free to move Galatea all over the map and do anything I want, in this case it's to draw (or pull) enemies towards my Warrior and Scout. As they approach you'll notice that once they reach the field of vision the Warrior automatically runs forward and starts swinging away. The Scout also times heals based on damage percentage and automatically knows to heal since he is in the right Stance (stances dictate what abilities that character has to utilize). In this clip however he's idle because no one has taken enough damage.



In this second clip, you see what happens when things get more hectic. I ended up pulling much more than I needed to and at the same time some more enemies spawned behind my group. Things look a bit worrisome but anyone who's played MMOs a lot knows that a good plan always comes through. Here I use the aforementioned strategy of Tanking/AoE. The Warrior in this game is the same as WoW's in that they can provoke nearby enemies to focus attacks on them. By using this I can gather away all the nasties from my squishier characters (like Galatea). My Scout finally begins auto healing here and when they all get near, it's time to drop the bomb and call it a day. After clearing out most of the enemies with a well timed AoE spell, I clean up the stragglers and try unsuccessfully to show off Freezing Spear. Btw you can also hear in the distance someone else who was in the area. Apparently they tried to same thing with less success as you can hear their Elementalist bite the dust.

The Latest from Colonial French Korea!

Have you ever seen the map of Granado Espada? Well it's in the same shape as Korea itself. So does that mean Granado Espada is some sort of Spanish/French Korean alternate universe? Weird. Anyway, I thought I'd post up about the only thing that keeps players playing this game. Unlike most other MMO games, customizing characters is not entirely what Granado Espada is about. In fact you can argue that collecting more family members is ultimately more fun in this game than getting a silly hat or shoes. So here's the latest 2 that I added to mine :
That's Emilia Guilianno and Lisa Lynway. There's a more super version of Emilia named Emilia the Sage but I don't really feel like paying real money to get an Emilia that can fly. Lisa is just fine the way she is though. I also got a guy named Soho but I don't really feel like wasting Barracks space to create him.
So what about the rest of the family? They're fine, except for poor Raki there. He runs the expenses and he just realized how expensive his sisters are. At least he can take solace in the fact that now they level fast AND stylish!

Cloverlocalypse

I think I found secret behind JJ Abrams Monster in his new up and coming untitled flick. Deep within the lake waters of Espoo, Finland lies the most fowl, hellish, and vile monster ever to walk the enchanted lands, who has been in slumber for 1000 years but by some miracle managed to drift into the upper New York bay. Prepare, for on January 18, 2008, he will awaken!!....MUSTAKRAKISH!!! THE LAKE TROLL!!

Fun with Fraps

Here's a short clip I recorded from earlier while running around Al Queza Moreza (whatever I'm sure I didn't even spell that right much less got it close)? It's a test of fraps on this PC while running a game. For the test however I had to significantly lower the resolution (1024x768) from my usual resolution (1440x900) in order to get a size ratio and a smoother running recording. On my default size it slows down, though not too much. I also wanted it to fit the youtube.com size ratio rather than force feeding it a 16:10 video.



Oh and this one is thrown in for fun. A glitch that happens when you die every now and then is that your animation gets stuck. This one features the knockdown animation, which looks pretty funny.

More Fun with Oblivion

Using a new mod I found called Actor's-in-Charge (I think it's what it's called) I've been fooling around in Oblivion with a lot of different things. The mod basically gives your character the ability to use many different poses and also gives you a spell to cause others to do those poses as well. I've also input a free roaming camera to allow for better angles then the default ones. Finally using the magic of fraps I'm able to take screenshots of the game with anti-aliasing enabled, which finally shows what the game is capable of on this cheap eVGA 7600GS (it's not the best in terms of frame rate but that'll do donkey...that'll do).
I also decided to change my character's face. One of my friends doesn't look too kindly at the Alba, so I decided instead of decimating a real person's mug I'd try my hand at creating a custom one using Ren's Cosmetic Beauty pack which gave me this elf look. After downloading more mods including Remy's Fantasy Figures, I've been able to create a very attractive elf character. It's after all the goal of every fantasy dork out there to have a hot elf, Oblivion PC makes that ever more possible with modding. Also I noticed from some of the Japanese Oblivion sites that they tend to make mod pages where they take screencaps and write a mini-storyline for their characters. I'm not that obsessed but I thought that it'd be hilarious to try taking screens in a sequence without telling any story. See what you come up with?
My question though is why would an elf chick be thrown in jail? We all know the first 2 minutes of the game is a jailbreak which leads to this point in the game, but why would anyone throw someone like this in jail? With how absolutely FUGLY the ingame NPCs all are, this game needs more beautiful people which is for the first time a really good justification for having made such an attractive character. Maybe with all the fugliness around, it's like that episode of the Twilight Zone where the beautiful woman was horribly disfigured and the "regular" people were pig faces?
I screwed this one up a little, her arm is going right through the floor there. Oh and an explanation about the "armor" she wears, it came with one of the mods that added clothes for Remy's UFF. I decided to add to the sheer dork factor here I'd make her wear something that would recall that lol sound clip of the D&D with the Mountain Dew.
And we're done. So what kind of story did you create here? What do you think is happening? Oh and you can see it slightly but I have the improved Natural Environments mod added so the trees are bigger, though the skies in this shot are entirely clear of the weather effects. I also didn't catch any of the added insects or birds in the screen but futures posts with more fun are abound.
*Update : I just noticed it, but I did catch 1 fly buzzing around near her ear there.

Fun with Oblivion

Ah the best part about Oblivion for the PC is definitely the mods. So what mod did I use now that I've got the game running against it's will? Well, Jessica Alba of course! This has got to be one of the strangest things to do with a game, I gave my character here Jessica Alba's face thanks to those Face Gen guys and on top of that I gave her "BAB's" hot body mod to replace the mannish one they all come with. I just got started with the modding fun so far, but fear not as I get deeper into the game there will be more mischief. For now...it seems Alba needs to hunt some deer...

The other guys like Sean Connery are harder to make look decent as they require facial hair mods and that sort of thing. This works best with the clean faced individuals it seems.

*For some unknown reason Bethseda deemed it necessary to allow you only to take screencaps by modding the ini file...and on top of that it only works without full scene anti-aliasing on so Alba looks a bit rough on the edges.

The Hunt Will Last FOREVER!

http://kotaku.com/photogallery/monterhunterwonderfest/

Thus far this has got to be the most wonderous of Wonderfests as it looks like there's a TON of Monster Hunter collectibles about to hit the market soon. Here we were on the Blacksmith just talking about how cool it'd be to have poseable MH figures with removable armor and out of the blue it seems there's going to be Microman/Kamen Rider style cast off armor figures. What the heck is up with the girl with the gun and the Destroyah model? lol

*Update! Where do Hunters go when they grow tired...why Pinky St. of course!
http://blog.yam.com/akros/article/11224453

Alerted to the presence of colored scans of Pinky St. : Monster Hunter I dug up a chinese blogger who happens to have said scans. Man even though the LAST thing in the world I thought of buying is Pinky St., these are highly tempting. I'm sure the resident Queen of Blacksmiths already has her sites set on the entire set...

Playstation 3 Unkillable According to Kotaku

http://kotaku.com/gaming/console-of-steel/the-ps3-is-unkillable-288962.php

Unkillable? I hope the folks at Kotaku realize what they stumbled upon. I hate to say this but if this state of matters proves true, then the Zombie Apocalypse Rating Index may just go straight to high. Unkillable? Zombies are unkillable. Are you saying that the Sony Playstation 3 is in actually one of the living dead!? Troubling times indeed...

Maybe We Need a Cheaper Sword and a Newer World?

Granado Espada was released in North America under the name Sword of the New World : Granado Espada. Though the software is $20 only, it cost $8 per month to maintain your account of which I chose not to. Instead I went to Singapore's release of their english version of Granado Espada which was still in free beta until recently when they announced that they will charge you as well for an account though the details are much better (about $5.20 a month) and they offer you differing packages to suite your gameplay style. I guess .50 a day is kind of cool, think of it as sort of an overextended arcade game?

So is Granado Espada worth your money? I had previously mentioned this as an alternative to World of Warcraft because of it being free, but now that the charges are out what would draw one to play this game? Honestly, it is no WoW. The point and click controls are infuriating at times however it was necessary to allow all 3 of your characters to have quick keys for their macro bars. The graphics are certainly better than most MMORPGs, but I guess it's expected from Asia where style always beats substance. There are some problems with this game that I would like to avoid in games altogether.

For one thing it's a grind fest. Sure there's quests to do, but most of them are "kill 100 of these!" or "stop 200 of these from going to x". The combat is fast and furious as most creatures take about 1 to 2 hits to knock down, but they respawn faster than you can pick up your drops at times. Leveling was easy until level 15 where it just slows to a crawl and we're back to archaic times when killing random beasties equals a good play experience.

I have noted 1 interesting dilemma about this game. I've been grinding out random mobs in an area called Al Mor-something. Anyway, I noticed that every now and then I'll pass a room where a player has his group parked in a convenient corner and set on "patrol mode". What this does is causes the player's characters to stand in place and attack incoming enemies much like in the old Blizzard RTS'. The problem here is it's just about the same as botting, so I'm running around busting my butt when all it takes is to leave the game in the background while the computer kills these creatures? Granted I'll die once or twice thanks to a roaming boss spawn but then I just pay 100 vis to the waypoint, run back and bam I'm in business again.

Still I do like the game's fast pace action, it's ability to allow for multiple character controls, the costumes and the RNPC hunts (these are the NPCs you can recruit into your team). It's fun enough every now and then but don't go grinding out this game as it'll give you bad memories of Lineage II.

* Update : The pay to play system in Granado Espada International Edition is actually pretty awesome now that I understand it. Apparently your monthly subscription is refunded to you in game in the form of Gold-points which you can then spend in the cash shop for fancier items and possibly RNPC cards. Pretty darn good deal there.

Danny Choo gets to see EVERYTHING!

http://www.dannychoo.com/blog_entry/eng/1034/Claymore/

Man this is the luckiest Otaku-guy in the world. He gets to go to all these shows, see all these things and even probably has some kind of deal with Good Smile Company. And now he gets to see this in person. Oh my god I want this SO bad right now. I'm serious. Like Max Factory Haruhi bad. Damn...that's pretty bad. I bet if I preorder this thing and then it comes out watch them release Galatea. I'd be pretty cheesed off at that point...then again not really. Like we always say here on the blacksmith's, why Cray more when you Cray less? That didn't make a lick of sense...

Level 5 to the rescue!

Just recently I discover that my PS3 can do something more than merge into dark matter. I learned that I could actually make a Japanese PSN account without having to go through to much trouble, Thus...giving my PS3 a reason to do something other than upscale dvd's and play PS2 games.The first thing that went through my head was Japanese PS1 games, demos, videos!!!sweet Jesus scissors!! this is gonna be fun! Well for the most part I was right about the PS1 games, they had shit loads, 50 to be exact, Many of them were fighters and rpgeez. Next was the PS3 demo's, for the most part this section was sad, the Folksoul and BladeStorm demo's were the only exceptions(btw David Beckham's avatar is in BladeStorm I shit you not).Last was the Video's and the downloadable content. The content was obviously japanese and basically unusable to me (sorry no japanese oblivion high school Hime packs) and the video section I did not look at until today.


As I browsed through the first page of this section I noticed that most of the video's there were on the English PSN already, there I new that the rest of the video's probably weren't going to be anything special (aw shucks).As soon as I turned to second page I noticed right away a new video which stood out from the rest due to its busy steel looking picture box. It was a game made by Level 5 called Shirokishi Monogatari, this game I was familiar with cause most popular gaming sites have covered this under the name White knight Story, seriously this game didn't seem all that interesting at first, but believe me after watching this video on the PSN I was sold. This game has all the makings of an epic tale on a huge scale, its like a mesh of mechs, pirates, politics and huge ultraman bad guys!!(there's even one that looks like Cthulhu). The Graphics of course are phenomenal and the musical Jrock-pop that is played in the background is awesome and add's the element of hardcore chaos to the crazy battling thats taking place \m/>_<\m/. To all of you who own a PS3 get yourself a PSN japanese account(also sat speakers help) and check this game out cause its awesome, and don't go looking it up online because remember you wanna give your friends a good reason why there's a 600$ trashcan in you living room, and all though this promo video is sure as hell not a good enough reason, at least your moving toward the right direction in convincing them that you have a machine capable of playing good games......oh and at least you not folding =P