Ah. Went out for a few smokes with my buddy, and somehow my computer rebooted itself when I was gone and I lost a bunch of edits and progress I made on the Star Ocean review... awww... and I'm getting so close to finishing it!

...*grumble*

Anyhow... pretty sure I'm gonna pre-order Crisis Core soon. And forsake the purchase of Patapon... is this a good decision? Well... Patapon looks neat and all, but it just doesn't seem like what I'm lookin' to play.

Anyone else got CC pre-ordered or are going to get it, anyway? It's really hard to resist this game giving its hype and what not.

Yes, that's right. I still haven't given up on this one. I've made some more progress, and I just need to fill in some more stuff about what progressing in the game is like and then a conclusion.

There's one part in it when I'm explaining out the beginning of the game and it's really all over the place. Which is kinda worrisome, so I might butcher that if it makes the whole thing a bit more concise.

I've had some ideas for other reviews in the meantime: Gitaroo Man Lives! and Silent Hill Origins as I completed that one recently. I probably won't do the SH0 one though because I generally agreed with the one that's already up by a staffer. But we'll see.

Twinbee Portables is really fun! I like the series everytime I play it a bit more on my PSP. I also made a preorder of the Metal Gear Essential Collection frmo Play-asia not long ago, coming in March. Looking forward to more Metal Gear action!

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xenogears and metroid is all i play on these snowy days,
just xenogears and metroid
and my little pocket-ship.

xenogears and metroid on rainy days,
the gears on my bike don't shift,
but i'm still rollin' to the game store,
to work my four hour night shift.

when i was a lad i had a dream
that i was a kid with a green
potion, tunic shield bow,
don't forget the master sword.

just gotta save the miners and
get the key to the cafe,
try not to slip on a rainbow.

dreamin xenogears and metroid and
snowy days on the face are what?

It's the interlude of a fierce battle,
one on the enourmous scale,
my goggles are just wild and all over the place,
my goggles are techno information
memories of destruction and
constantly being reborn.
And another interlude when
I'm summoned again.

It's the interlude of a fierce battle,
and we're gonna shoot our lasers
at the furry-flopping creatures,
marching out from the mouth,
just another one of my twisted enemies.

Who is that man shouting "option?"
is that like my past life
or god the force himself
guiding me my way,
perhaps the comerades I lost,
the magics of the quarter...

It's the interlude of a fierce battle,
one on the enourmous scale,
my goggles are just wild and all over the place,
my goggles are techno information
memories of destruction and
constantly being reborn.
and another interlude when
I'm summoned again.

~

My attempt at a game inspired poem, in this case, gradius-inspired.

Does such a thing exist? The idea of doing this popped into my head, as I was thinking about the music from Gradius V while I was outside smoking a cigarette. (Freshly chopped, *ahem*)

But anyway, I'm into poetry and I'm into gaming so why shouldn't the medias get its own subgenre in poetry? That's a bit of a broad statement, but just leaving this as a note to myself...

This all kind of occurred to me when I thought of the track title from Gradius V's soundtrack called "INTERMEZZO" referring to every part in gradius between stages where some dudes come out and they're a chance for 4ish powerups before the level gets underway. A lasting theme in the Gradius series. It's pretty interesting to consider those parts as say, intermissions or interludes before the real battle.

I'm prepared to play a run through of GV now that I've practiced the fourth organic stage a bunch of timee earlier. Tried out the flamethrower in the weapon edit mode and the napalm strike missles, (they're really flashy.) The flamethrower is strong as hell, too. Tried Ripple too, which was actually pretty fun.

This entry is going under Game Culture, by the way. =D

p.s. expect a gradius inspired poem about intermissions later.

I finally picked this game up again after playing it for about five minutes. I was biding my time before, but tonight seemed like the night to resume the game. Played for about a few hours. I think it is mandatory to play Silent Hill games in the dark, especially a portable Silent Hill as Origins has been released on PSP. However, it will also be being ported to PS2 or something.

In any case, playing the game in the darkness of my room is pretty effective, and I find myself sucked into the Silent Hill universe with every little more I play. The music sounds great, some unusually unsettling songs, but some of those unusually unsettling ones sometimes have a kind of "safe purity" that shows through. Like in this staircase area where there's a couple windows and the sound of water flowing is heard, but there's no sign that water is flowing anywhere. I'm also kind of being lead by the intensity of the music at times, which is cool. Some of the camera angles are pretty disorienting and intentionally at times, probably to invoke a sense of danger in the area. What you don't want to do is be watching yourself running towards the camera and then try to reposition the camera right away. It snaps into position and completely stops your character too untill you can adjust to going in the direction you were previously facing. This is kind of annoying, because it ruins the flow of the game as sometimes you've got an undesirable camera angle and there's 3 mutated fuckers that want to rip your throat out.

A gratifying part of this installment is the use of a variety of melee weapons: TVs, meat hooks, scalpers, lamps, coat hangers, sledge hammers, all kinds of stuff to stun bash the enemies. Most of the melee weapons are good for the easier foes, but not for the bigger creatures. Oh yeah, and smash alcohol bottles against them, big ones.

The lighting is actually pretty good, at times I had to just inspect it to see what it's doing. The cast shadows are just amazing to see, they kind of vibrate around as if you're actually looking at something in the dark. And some areas just feel very cinematic when you flash your light onto them.

The buildings are kinda claustrophobic, and there's tons of door checking. And I've only scratched the surface of the story so far.

I got stuck after exhausting over a few possibilities and discovering no new place or thing to do. Bah, may have to check a guide.

I can't seem to find the right angle to approach my Star Ocean 3 review at, it's only about 50% written but I'm afraid I've turned to liking it so much the past month that I can't even describe why I like it without sounding like a fanboy or whatever. Well, I need to make an outline of the main things to talk about, I think that will help me prod it along. I haven't reviewed any RPGs before and there's so much content to talk about, it's kind of disorienting compared to the simpler games I've tried my shot at reviewing.

It's been too long since I got one out, and now I'm debating on a Gitaroo Man Lives! review. Hoooo.

I've had that game and Salamander Portables in the PSP recently. Xexex is a pretty good one, I like the detachable tentacle bit, it invokes some interesting strategy during the gameplay. The graphics are detailed and colorful too. I'll be playing this one a bit more untill I can get a bit farther than the uhm... 4th stage? or 5th? I think that's as far as I got so far.

This green tea I brewed is pretty sweet tasting for green tea. I kinda like it.

As for Star Ocean 3... well, I've beat every single bonus boss except for the very final one, Freya. She's got a bajillion HP and a move that kills my whole party instantly if I happen to be unable to use an item when she activates the casting sequence for it. Which has happened .... like 8 times. I'll try some day when I'm up for spamming the fucker for 30 minutes, so I can get a battle trophe or whatever. Heh, the battle isn't very fun, really, but I'm sure it's gratifying to accomplish.

Wait, what am I talkin about... I did review an RPG. Anyway...

I forgot about this site for a week, somehow. I don't know how that happened really, but I had many-a-day when my schedule was totally wack, so maybe my memory was failing me for a while. Who knows? Anyway, I've been sinking some more time into Star Ocean 3, I swear, the game is like crack to me right now. I'm finally doing the bonus dungeon content for the first time, too! It's pretty exciting. My team is just wicked. And I did think of a fun way to write another paragraph of my review, that is, to detail a few seperate battles in an exciting kind of way. I'll indulge and go ahead and describe how my party eliminates baddies right now:

The battle begins and immedietely Maria flanks one of the approaching lizard foes of three. One lizard foe seeks her and the other two are desiring to trade knuckles with Cliff, who very well has the power to trade, to over compensate and destroy. The lizards amble slowly towards Cliff, and Maria is alreadyt aligned with the enemies vertically on the battleground. Death comes shortly as Maria zaps the nearest Lizard, cancel combos into a Magnetic Field, stunning the lizard to prepare for him for what is to come, then cancel combos again into a longevous energy blast from her laser pistol, extending across the battle field and dealing multiple hits consecutively, Maria holds the trigger to a large glowing blue beam quickly eradicating the three lizards. Three seconds pass and over 100,000 HP damage is dealed over three seconds and the lizards are obliterated. At the last three seconds Sophia's Explosion fireball is dropping from the sky to clear away the remaining bone and sinew.

Ah, it's really a sight to see. Unfortunatly, some of the terminology in that paragraph gives it a kind of limited understanding. I'll try to write something like that in my review, although not as technical, so I can explain why the battles are so kickass and fun.

Also, I think it's pretty creepy of me to have renamed Maria's character the name of a friend of mine. But, I can't resist. (A friend whom I've had a crush on in the past, but I'm over it now.) Ah, the beauty of renaming characters.

So, I've plugged in about 80 hours in Star Ocean 3 over the past few weeks. I'm fairly close to finishing though, and I'm not really concerned about getting enough battle trophes to unlock 4d mode, (it requires a lot of freakin time and effort) so I think I'll finish it off in about 10-15 more hours of play, maybe.

In other gaming excitement... I've been playing a little DDR at the arcade lately, I'm actually getting a little bit better lately and I can do some 9 footers, and pro'lly pass most 8 footers on the Supernova mix they have at the mall. I'm hoping to keep that up with my buddy cause it's good exercise and generally a good time.

I'm also lookin' forward to Patapon on the PSP. Gamestop's site says it's gonna sell for $20 new, and as cool as the game is looking, that's one hell of a deal. There is a list of games I want to play, but seeing as I only have a part time job, I don't really want to justify any more gaming purchases, especially if I have a full plate. That list of games is kind of like this: Odin Sphere, Persona 3, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (I interrupted my playing of this to play Star Ocean, by the way ^_^, it's a pretty damn sweet game. And I expect P3 is as cool.), Call of Duty 4 (PC), Okami, Bully, Godhand.

Yeeeep. You know it.

Well, I've been babbling for a while here. With any luck, I'll have the Star Ocean review up within the week. Cheers. Here's a Patapon vid.

Checking out Twinbee Portables on the PSP a bit more. Pop'N Twinbee is really fun. I've been stickin' to Twinbee De tana for the most part with the game, but gave Pop'n a try since De tana was pissing me off. Heh, really fun stuff. I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this little UMD for a long time. The Twinbee games are just so happy, makes me wanna play more Cute 'em ups. I'm browsing the Music Gallery now... lets you listen to every single track from all 5 Twinbee games it includes. Some awesome tracks, and I read that Michuru Yamane did some work on the Twinbee soundtracks, same woman who did the Symphony of the Night soundtrack. Some really catchy, fun songs.

Will someone play Twinbee on the PSP with me? I'm in Minnesota, by the way. Hehe.

Oh my goodness. That was hell.

Sphere Building is evil! Beriel and Belzeber were wicked! In one of the battles I thought that Beriel was smart enough to protect Belzeber, as Beriel was sidestepping close to him as Belze shot off his barrage of rockets. Beriel is just evil with his multicolored electric whip, too. Was laying the smackdown, swinging his whip all around all 3 of my party members. Belzeber likes to shoot a shit load of missles at you. The best thing you can do is get underneath him or if he shoots the rockets at you, run like hell if you're gonna dodge them. 4 Magical Berries (Party 90% HP Recovery) and a couple Ressurrection Mists (ressurect party at 30% HP/MP) I was somehow able to defeat them. The trick was taking Belzeber (rocket shooter max) down first, then Beriel was a cinch.

But GOD. After that, there was a boss rush that I probably re-loaded on at least 20 times. You gotta fight 2 HP Bonus'd enemies, a demonic angel and a huge black dragon. The angel wasn't so tough because I set Charge and Aeriel Assault to chain on Cliff, because Hammer of Might wasn't doing any damage to these foes. Both of them have wicked AOE moves that can kill my party pretty much instantly. The angel casts a spell that sends green hexagons circling around her that lasts for like 10 seconds and does moderate damage. While the dragon has a move where it shoves a shit ton of spikes out from the ground and sends my party members soaring into the air, and as they fall back down are pricked again by the spikes, killing them. FUCKING WICKED! AHHH. So, that move killed me off several times. There's an item called the Ankh of Dismassal that can dismiss enemies from battle (if you got a bit of luck) so my strategy was to use the two I had to dismiss the dragon before the fight got too longevous so I had a good amount of health remaining for the final battle. My success relied on the Ankh of Dismissal working.

Then the third battle with the Convictor, this black humanoid beast. The main attack I had to watch out for was his Cyclone move where a bunch of tornados gust up in front and around him and suck my players up inflicting heavy damage. It was imperative for me to avoid this move, especially with Cliff, who is my main damage dealer. Due to the allie AI's being really stupid, they would manage to spar with the foe for about 20 seconds or so untill ultimatly meeting their demise from one move or the other. I had to show my cunning and come in at the oppurtune times to skill-chain Charge and Aeriel Assault when the time was right, then retreat to ressurrect my party members. If anything, they were meaty decoys for Cliff to bring on his 5 digit HP damage reign. And I about used up all of my Magical Berries, so I was conserving them and using Ripe Berries which heal 60% HP of the whole party. Was also using Ressurrection Elixars pretty frequently which resurrect an ally at 60% HP/MP. I laid down the final succession of blows from Cliff, sustaining my party as if with shock pedals in the process, and won the fight, finally.

I motioned my right arm in victory and said to myself, "Yes! ... Yeah! Finally. Damn fuckers!"

~

Anyhow, I'm like 40% done with my Star Ocean 3 review. And I'm feeling a lot better now. Go immune system.

So I picked up this memory from the brand LeisureStore, based in HongKong, off of ebay. Got a 1gig stick of this stuff but the problem with it is it won't play games, or update your PSP's firmware. Keep in mind, it's not specifically designed for the PSP. But I wasn't so lucky with this purchase. So now I'm gonna have to shell out another $15 or something for a good stick of memory so I can play Beats on my PSP. D'oh.

So stay away from LeisureStore if you want your memory to play games. Otherwise, it seems to contain other kinds of data on the PSP just fine.

But I'm thinkin' I might just get some A/V out cables so I can play on a TV. Those would come in handy. Costs about the same as a gig or two of memory, anyway.

My new years evening was pretty interesting. Met a bunch of new people, saw some young women taking off their clothes, and consumed amounts of alcohol and marijuana. Some other people weren't keeping a positive attitude about the party situation, they were annoying. Just chill out, people. You're supposed to be receptive to good holiday vibes.

I'm mostly recuperating today because it seems I've caught a cold. Baaaaah. My nose is already starting to hurt a bit from all the wiping and blowing.

Not really sure what I want to game right now. Hummmmm.

I spent most of the day at my buddies place the other day. We played some Street Fighter II Turbo on his Wii via Virtual Console. We had a fierce 40ish rounds. Ah, how I love Street Fighter. He's pretty good with Balrog. After that, we played some SSBMelee with his siblings, which always gets a bit heated between him and his siblings. Played my cycle of characters: Ness, Samus, Link, Young Link. Fun stuff! That's the only time I play Smash Bros is when I go over there, so they all are usually slightly better than me each time I go over. Heh.

Then, I got to try out Mario Galaxy. I gathered about 5 stars. And damn, it's pretty fuckin' cool. I was impressed. The controls are amazingly intuitive.

Anyway, time is flying today. I wanted to play some Star Ocean since I woke up. But I've been sidetracked by various things. Think I'm gonna get to it shortly. I want to write the review for it soon. I've got a good idea as to how to describe my fandom towards the game, already, though.

I guess that's about it. Peace.

Merry F'n Christmas! My LocoRoco review up. I'm fairly happy with it.

Well, I've began work on a Locoroco review. But I feel I should complete the game before I finish it. This is the second time that I've began on a different review than already scheduled. Silly me, oh well. Locoroco is a pretty cool game, but sometimes the music either disturbs me, or annoys me. Sometimes it's really good though, too. Specifically, the Halloween-esque song and some other tribal sounding song really annoy me. I can handle listening to pipsqueaks singing in jibberish for only so long. Thusly, I usually don't play Locoroco much longer than a half hour in a sitting. When I do sit down and play, there is usually something amusing that has come up in the stages. Charming game. I tried the Chuppa chuppa minigame and a crane minigame, the crane game just sucked balls. But the other game was kinda cool, you control the power the Chuppa chuppa shoots the loco and you have to guide it through a pinball esque labrynth, timing the power right every time. Kinda cool. Also cool, is the game allows you to take screenshots. So I just took a bunch, will probably submit them to the site. ME WANT TASTY HGPOINTS. Or something, lol.

This has been a pretty lazy winter break for me so far, the office I work at is being remodeled during and around the holidays so I basically got a vacation to screw around. I should do something social after Christmas though, for sure. I've been in the house for like a few days straight. O_O, not typical. I celebrated my birthday with Pizza and working on a democast for Starmen.net. (demo broadcast) audition type thing I submit. It turned out pretty good.

Anyway, I wonder what I should do today...?

Ah, shoveling is one thing I need to do.