2010 - Welcome, To DIE! (Year in review)

Year end quick notes, since I've got about 50 minutes till the year ends:

• Just finished Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Decent series for being weird (this is Gainax, after all), kinda like Powerpuff Girls x Ren and Stimpy. I probably wouldn't give this a repeat viewing, though I will admit I haven't heard the word "fuck" used in Engrish so gratuitously since Air Gear. Short and sweet, awesome soundtrack too!
• Holy hell...I picked up my DJ Hero case, and they mean "case". Thing's heavy and heavy-duty. Look for the video review for this one...
• ...Which will be posted once I get my Sony Bloggie Touch a flexible tripod. I'll be doing a LOT of video this year, though I will still do a write up as well.
• Backlog is still huge, though I did just knock out two anime series in a month. Some day I'll finish AIR and Lucky Star. Game wise, I'll be here awhile.
• THEY NEED TO DO MORE AIR GEAR!!! The Air Gear OVA was awesome, and it made me realize how much I missed this series. It's a great concept with great writing, but for some reason, Ito Ogure can't seem to get this or Tenjou Tenge completed. I blame his studio.
• You Don't Know Jack. 2011. PS3. Eff yeah.
• Pre-ordered Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition. I've never had a legit fight stick before, though I'm looking forward to this one d/t the Happ parts (authentic arcade) and, well, because it'll be an awesome game.
• Looking forward to being able to play games again, got most of them loaded. Probably going to go through Front Mission Evolved.
• Best pickups:

Demon's Soul w/artbook + soundtrack, Resonance of Fate, Resident Evil: Gold Edition w/move support - $20 each.

Deus Ex 1+2, Fear 1 + 2 with ALL DLC - 12 bucks total on Steam.

Guncon 2 Black (Japanese) - $20.

Little Big Planet GOTY edition - 11 bucks.

Big thanks to CheapyD and everyone at cheapassgamer.com for the help in finding some of these deals!

• Gaming fails of the year:

The ending to Snatcher. SUM UP!!!!

Replacing my hard drive on my PS3. Worth it, but man, it was a literal pain.

Strider Hiryu not in MvC3 because "He doesn't fit what we're trying to do with this game. She-Hulk, MODOK and Tron Bonne apparently fit juuuuuuuust fine, but not the most badass futuristic ninja EVER. He had BETTER be DLC.

Retailer-specific fatalities for MK. Granted, it's only a few legacy fatalities, and they'll most likely be available in a bundle later for much cheaper than reserving 3 copies. Still, don't like where this is headed.

DmC. Dante the heroin freak still isn't getting me interested.

Rock Band 3. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but buggy as fuck. Sucks to have

a game crash just because you selected a certain song.

• Gaming wins of the year:

The return of the 90s: New MvC, New Mortal Kombat, New Tekken, New Street Fighter, New You Don't Know Jack? Awesome. Now if only NBA Jam wasn't ass.

Kratos in MK. Talk about a natural.

PS Move. Motion control that actually works with core gaming and vice versa.

Kinect. Not for what MS has it doing, but for the other applications that users have been

using it for. Some seriously awesome stuff coming out!

PS2 HD revivals. Great idea, especially looking forward to the Team ICO stuff!

• You know what? I've said too much already. Things are going to pick up steam realllllllllly quickly. Stay tuned for more. 2011 is going to rock!

-Trakdown

Review: Victory Gundam

Well, I'm at a loss here.

I'm not even sure of what to make of Victory Gundam. This won't be a long review, because I'm still processing it.

Indeed it is, Jackie. Indeed it is.

There's really not much in this series that is get-up-out-of-your-seat exciting. There's a few good episodes, but nothing spectacular. It's not ZZ Gundam horrible by any means, but I just kind of feel like Yoshiyuki Tomino turned in an incomplete paper. If it's possible for a 51 episode anime to feel rushed, this would be it. In fact, this kind of feels like a 2nd attempt at F91.

This leads to a lot of things just *happening*. People start getting certain powers for no reason. People lose their goddamned minds with little-to-no reason why. Fuala Griffon starts out as a reasonable, Haman Kahn type commander and returns later as a psychotic version of Chara Soon with an even dumber gimmick: sleigh bells. I'm dead fucking serious.

Speaking of which, part of the reason the series is just so stilted is the amount of 20+ year old women talking to 13-year-old Usso Evin in very sexually suggestive ways. Seriously, this is the least subtle Shotacon anime I've ever seen, and I've watched Mahoromatic. For Christ's sakes, Usso even ends up naked in the bathtub with a female soldier. And to top it off, one of the weapons employed against him near the end?

Scantily clad women.

Yeah, not exactly the satellite cannon duel from Gundam X, is it?

By now, you've noticed that I've not talked about plot much. That's because I can't fucking tell you what it is. I know that the federation has fallen apart, they've fallen victim to the Zanscare Empire, the League Militaire (think AEUG from Zeta) is fighting them and Usso's really good at fighting. Beyond that, details get fuzzy because very little in this anime ever gets an explanation. Katejina Loos, in particular, is completely puzzling as a villain. Best I can figure is that she is stone cold fucking nuts.

Wouldn't be the first time.

So yeah, there's mecha battles, nudity, crazy women and some bizzare shit going on that doesn't explain itself well enough for anyone to really concern themselves with.

Verdict: For completionists only. Like I said, it's not ZZ Gundam bad, but considering that this story really doesn't go anywhere (and is 51 episodes long), I can't really recommend it. I only watched it because I'm a completionist and I wanted to be done with the UC timeline (well, except for Unicorn). While the mech battles are fairly well done, the designs aren't all that hot - the Victory Mk II being an exception- and aren't worth the time investment. The ending is remarkably unsatisfactory as well.

Hard Drive is updated.

Now if only I was awake enough to play. :(

2nd round KO: Trakdown wins, hard drive loses.

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal!

Ya miserable fucking cunt piece of shit! >:O

*flings hard drive, smashes window*

I warned ya, PS3. I ain't nobody to fuck wit'. Especially not when I'm packing a $10 set of screw extractors, a pistol grip power drill with high-torque chuck and a high from finishing my classes for the semester.

The item I'm holding in that picture is indeed the PS3's OEM hard drive: An 80gb Seagate Momentus. The hard drive in my hand from the earlier blog is still in the anti-static bag, but once I get the other two screws out (groan) and get replacements that aren't made of Play-doh, I'll be rollin'.

Stay tuned- the saga continues, though not for long.

UPDATE: Other two screws came along quietly. Good for them. Tomorrow I should be back up and running! :D

-Trakdown

Round 2.

Got some screw extractors, and finals are almost over- hopefully tomorrow night will be the end game for both school and my hard drive fight.

A Truly Frustrating Gaming Moment

The item you see above is a 500GB hard drive. This is supposed to be in my PlayStation 3 by now.

Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen afternoon of nearly Sisyphean work , it still lays in its anti-static bag. In electronic stasis, or perhaps a comatose state. This is because Sony used fucking marshmallows and tin to make their goddamned hard drive caddy screws, which are screwed in tight enough that they might as well be welded. This ensures that while the 1/4 inch son-of-a-bitch head of the screw stays firmly in socket, you can carve your name into the goddamn screw-head and strip the fucker because it's made out of taffy. So yeah, it's not for lack of want, I just can't get the stupid screws out to throw the new one in!!

Fuck you, blue screw. I hate you more than Survival Arts. >:(

So, like a good boy (though a dumb one: I should have looked earlier), I checked the internet to find out that this is a very common problem. Also, for solutions I found out that people have had luck using needle nose pliers to rotate the screw enough that it will give. Well, I tried that. Two things happened. For one, I've scraped pretty much all the blue off of the screw. For two...

I've pinched my index finger on my right hand enough to give myself two solid blood blisters. See, there's not a ton of clearance on that drive bay, nor is there a lot of purchase on the edge of that goddamn screw, so it slips and it pinches my hand every time.

So, that's where I leave off tonight- pissed off, big fat zero on gaming time, hurt hand and my new hard drive still sitting there waiting to be installed. Oh, and I've filed off a good part of the drive bay. Plus, one of those two other screws isn't budging either. My options from here:

1. Hope to God (Goenitz might be preferable in this case) that my mom has a cutting wheel left for her Dremel tool so I can slot these screws and try again with a flat head screw driver.

2. Pay for a screw extractor and hope that works.

Goddamn it, Sony. Goddamn it.

-Trakdown