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

Review: Snatcher (Sega CD)

Please hold your "ZOMG HE POSTED" comments until the end of the tour.

Sometimes when I reach into the good ol' backlog, I reach really far. But with finals coming up, I can't really get into a big epic of a game, so I decided to finally beat up on a game that's been tormenting me for years: Snatcher. And since I didn't see any translation patches for the Playstation version, I went with the only one with english voices: The Sega CD Version.

To be fair, if you're going to play a Sega CD game, might as well be this one.

A word of warning: If you're into fast action, guns-a-blazing, destroy everything gameplay...well, you'll get a bite, and no more. There are some shooting scenes, but they are few and far between. There's a lot of text and a lot of talk, and with good reason: Not only is this an adventure game (with a joypad, no less!), it's a Hideo Kojima game. Yep, from when he did things other than Metal Gear. So get ready for lots of story and occasional action scenes, with worse balance between the two than any trip Solid Snake ever took. Seriously, you'd be begging for MGS2's finale after this.

Note he isn't actively manipulating a joypad. You won't be either.

All the Halo players out of the room now? Good. Let's continue.

In an adventure game, the most important thing is the story. Sure, you need to have puzzles and traps, and usually something to at least threaten your life (Monkey Island being one exception). Here, you've got all three, but while the story in Snatcher is fairly good and not nearly as predictable as it first seems, it's not exactly original. There's a LOT of borrowed material in it- the game itself is a cyberpunk story a la Blade Runner, but there's also stuff borrowed from other Konami games. Your cybernetic partner is Metal Gear Mark II- you may know him from Metal Gear Solid 4, and he's introduced with the "ta-ra" theme from Metal Gear 2/MGS 1. Here, however, he talks, though it's not always a positive experience. It's kind of like C-3PO and the computer from M.A.S.K. had a kid. He also saves your game, totes evidence and is a phone, so at least he's useful. This is in addition to the numerous easter eggs, including a night club where Goemon, Bill and Lance from Contra, Sparkster, Dracula and Simon Belmont and even the boss from Lethal Enforcers show up!

Also, strippers. Feel free to make chauvinistic responses to that question.

You play as Gillian Seed, new assignee to the Junkers, a special detective unit. Some mechanized asshole Terminator wannabes are going around snatching the skin off of people (thus the name) and parading around as them. Since the rules state that such a thing is illegal outside of Mortal Kombat, you're required to go out and take them down, as well as find their hideout. Though like MK, there is a fair amount of blood/gore/yucky stuff because of their hobby. You do this by talking, looking, inspecting, using items and all the other wonderful things that you never, EVER get to do in real life.

Now, one problem with this is that you kind of need to understand how adventure games work. Thankfully, you're not fucking with a parser interface this time around- for you youngins, this is where you had to type in a sentence to get your character to do something and hope to god you wrote it the same way the pricks who coded the game did. Here, though, there are events that you have to take care of to trigger forward motion in the game. These aren't always clear, and sometimes, you end up doing things that you've already done multiple times just to kill time so that an event can happen. While I don't think there are any game breaking bugs here, it does add to your play time tremendously if you can't figure those times out. Thankfully, you're often given clues to help with the other parts, but I can also see people not knowing how to hit event triggers- they can be cryptic.

You ain't progressin' until she cheers up. And no, you can't shout "STOP FUCKING CRYING!" to speed it up.

To be fair, this is a good thing. Yes, I blew through this game in 8 hours, but I did it with a guide precisely because I don't have time to wait things out. Honestly, I don't think anybody would ever get stuck that bad- you'll eventually try everything and trigger it by accident if some other character hasn't flat told you what's going on. And really, games were bloody expensive back then. Maybe it's good that your $60-85 game lasted you forever.

So if getting stuck isn't that big a problem, what is? Well, we've got the shooting scenes. They're not really that hard, it's basically playing whack-a-mole with a joypad. You can use a light gun with it, but a) good luck finding one, b)I doubt you still have access to a Sega CD, Light Gun, copy of this game AND a CRT tv to boot and c)the light gun is actually harder to use. That's gotta be a first. These scenes are all pretty manageable, with the exception of the 2nd-to-last shootout where there's some shenanigans going on.

Most boring. Gun. Game. Ever.

But that's all an aside to the story, and I gotta tell ya: I understand the complaints about Metal Gear. I mean, at least with MG, you can shut the VA's up and just read the text for important info. Here, though, EVERYTHING is spoken. While the VA work is fine here, I really don't need the chief to reiterate everything I just did in the chapter prior. The ending is a fucking test of your patience, as you get to hear somebody drone on for 25 FUCKING MINUTES, all while your character, who is armed, sits there and lets him.

"GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!"

I find this actually hurts the game, since at least some of this could've been explained in the game. Thankfully, the soundtrack, while repetitive at points (Junker HQ is literally a 6 second loop) is still awesome overall, so at least that's one thing less to worry about. Overall, the atmosphere combines a bright neon future with a techy score, but still manages to keep a dark tone about itself through great graphics and a well drawn dystopia to interact with.

Besides, what other game lets you INVESTIGATE REMAINS? Pokemon Silver, sure, but besides that?

Snatcher's a fine game, and I would recommend playing through it. I doubt you'll play it again after your first instance, partly because adventure games are pretty much linear, and partly because you might want to keep your pulse up a little bit. Not the best game ever, but not horrible, and aside from Sonic CD, one of the only reasons the Sega CD should ever have existed. Just be aware that this IS a Hideo Kojima ADVENTURE game and you'll know exactly what to expect.

Oh, and get comfy when the ending starts. You'll be there awhile.

Move, Bitch.

So this week is apparently alternative control method week. Here's the story so far:

1. Broke out my GunCon2 (black version, $20 off of ebay which is beyond a steal) and loaded up some Gunbarl, or Point Blank if you're nasty-ish. Still plays great, and thankfully the graphic style doesn't need to be brought up to date. Time Crisis 1, unfortunately, is complete pixelated ass. I mean, I don't remember Virtua Cop looking this bad. But that might be my fault.

2. DJ Hero. Bought it for 20 bucks, opened the box. That's...it so far.

But the big release of last week was the Playstation Move, which I finally got a chance to demo. I was a little apprehensive at first; I mean, the Wii was fun, but the presentation and depth just wasn't there. I mean, after all, swinging a baseball bat is just swinging a baseball bat. Full disclosure: I ditched the Wii long before Motion+ was even announced. So I didn't know what to expect here.

Wow.

So far, I've only played a few games off the Sports Champions disc- Disc Golf, Table Tennis and Archery. But Archery was a hit (and yes, I'm ashamed of that pun) with me. Just the fact that it was so natural in line with motions (you pantomime pulling the arrow from the quiver on your back, loading it into the bow, pulling back and releasing) was amazing, and years ahead of what I found with the Wii. Sure, it's not a marathon game, but it's great in a pinch.

I also tried out Eyepet. Fun, but way beneath my age group.

Anime-wise, I decided to get off of Tomino-exile and give Victory Gundam a shot. I'm only 4 episodes in, so it'll be awhile before I can comment fully.

Jump in (a lake)

I've tried, repeatedly, to push myself to buy an XBOX 360. The surprise here is that honestly, there was a wiiiiiiiide fucking chasm of enthusiasm that was left when MGS4, rather than delight me, forced me to test the impact resistance of a SIXAXIS controller. That game was the reason I decided to buy a PS3, and this was at a point where there was a dearth of stuff yet to come. So I was disappointed, and really, I probably could've switched and probably would've if I didn't run the risk of buying a system that had to be sent to an infirmary via a parcel service, therefore depriving me of a console.

It's hard to argue I made a bad decision just with that info. But I can't imagine owning a 360 right now and being happy with some of the latest goings-on. I had thought earlier of a comparison between the two systems' online offerings, both basic and premium. The premiums basically came down to a choice between joining a book-of-the-month club with (thus far) admittedly shitty books or ones you already owned, and an approach more akin to a ransom note tied to a brick and thrown through your window once a year, demanding payment in exchange for your friend's list. It's your $50, spend it wisely- even if it's on neither item.

But how bad is this increase for Live? For me, it's horrible form, and it doesn't even change my online gaming capability. It's not even that bad an increase, at less than an extra dollar a month, but just the idea of it sucks. I don't have the numbers for certain, but I know that there was a fairly small, yet vocal group of PS3 owners who hated the drop of Backwards compatibility. There was an even smaller group that pitched a fit when the "Other OS" feature was dropped. But who doesn't fucking use Live gold on the 360? You need it to use Netflix for god's sake.

And I want to make clear: there's no fanboy lens here. I certainly can imagine it wouldn't be beneath Sony to decide to start charging for their online offerings. I don't know why they haven't yet, nor do I understand the lack of cross game chat. I fear that I will be pulled out of those fogs simultaneously. One thing's for sure, I'm not in any rush to pick up another system. At least I only risk being hustled once, for now.

Back online.

It's a bizarre thing to be on gaming hiatus for so long, but now that I'm done moving, I've finally had time to get back into gaming, somewhat. PS3 is hooked back up, PS2 soon to follow, Gamerang fired back up. PSP hasn't been touched, and I do need to fix that soon- Star Ocean isn't going to finish itself.

PSN+ still hasn't proven itself worthy, though I'll give it some time. Red Faction: Guerilla isn't a horrible game, and it's definitely something I wouldn't mind having on my hard drive, but I've already got it on my PC, which I'm currently building. Give me Warhawk as the free game for that month, give me access to the beta for FFXIV, give me something substantial. I sincerely expect September's offering to be, at best, a discount on Gauntlet II and Heavy Rain for rental. Then again, it's reasonable to expect a slow month when Madden comes out.

When this generation started, I began my forum life on PS3forums.com. It's not a bad place, honestly, but due to a desire to actually enjoy my games rather than yell at people about them, I kinda gave up the forum poster lifestyle. But I did make a rather prophetic statement: That Nintendo's attitudes towards 3rd parties was going to cause problems. Lo and behold, we now have had 2 games - at least - that are giving away HD versions of previous Wii exclusives with new games. The latest being NBA Jam, which is somewhat baffling; I don't know who would prefer a sim-style basketball game, yet still make time for an arcade game with horrible rubberbanding. I do know that, for somebody who played the original, HD+Online is much more appealing than a remix mode and boss battles since I don't remember asking for those when I had the original. Least of all would I pass up the latter for the former at a 39.99 premium.

SD Gundam G Generation Wars has turned out to be a new kind of fun for me: the more I figure out of the game, the better I like it. It's as if it found that part of my brain that I haven't had tickled in a while. Really, there's no simpler joy than a celebration for unlocking the ability to have the Gundam X crew helm your ship, at least not yet- I have entertained the possibility of having a dream team crew that would never happen in the normal Gundam continuity. I'm about to unlock the cinematic version of the satellite cannon, which is much better than the light-saberish map version. I get the feeling that this game may still retain my attention for a long, long time.

Fanime! E3! Backlogathon! Summer Sucks!

My absence from my blog is, at least, not entirely my fault: in the corner of my room sits a collection of parts from what used to be a computer. My computer, to be exact. For some reason, the sunovabitch just doesn't want to get past POST, and I have not yet had the money to replace it. Come August, I will attempt to continue my blogging ways, though then time will be a hard-found commodity. There are going to be some days when I leave for work at 6am and don't come back home till 9 at night. But why trouble you with my problems when there's actual fun stuff to talk about?

FANIME 2010: The Revenge

(Editor's note: It is the policy of this establishment that when a 2nd happening of something occurs that is an improvement on an already fun time, it shall be given the same subtitle as the sequel to the wonderful 1980's arcade game, Taito's Double Dragon. It is also the policy to not continue using the subtitles of the Double Dragon series for any happening after that, since those games were fucking horrible. My apologies to anybody who was looking forward to Fanime 2011: The Rosetta Stones.)

So, it finally happened. I had begun planning for Fanime 2010 roughly a month or two after the Fanime 2009 was over. Sadly, our plans to stay on an executive level room were squashed by hotel management, but we were still put fairly out of the way and didn't have to deal with a whole lot of noise.

Prep was actually quite amusing, and easier than I thought. I found out that Rayon shirts are ass for absorbing paint, but take fabric markers fairly well. After about 3 of them, I had completed work on my cosplay, and voila:

Black Lagoon! From left to right: Tiffany Gock as Revy, Jonas Fairfield (Me) as Benny, Jason Shaird as Dutch.

Not Pictured: Rock, due to logistical issues

My friends Tiffany and Jason, who were nice enough to come all the way from Arizona to partake in this madness, did a hell of a job with their outfits. We got noticed and photographed, even had a fellow congoer rush to recognize us. Sure, we didn't get anywhere near the attention as many other cosplayers, but A)we didn't drop in anywhere near the money they did on their stuff, B)we weren't there primarily to have our pictures taken, and C)that left us free to do other stuff. Our two California contacts, Jon and John, also got some recognition for great outfits from Speed Grapher and Trigun, respectively.

ANIME: One reason I go to these things is to get an idea of what to watch. Sure, I went on my Gundam kick for a bit, and I enjoyed it, but then ZZ threw up a nice brick wall. I'm still on self-imposed Tomino-exile. So at Fanime, I got into a few more series. Here's what I discovered:

K-On!: Okay, why is there so much hate for this anime? Not grimdark enough? Anyways, this was a very funny, kinda whimsical anime that I've continued to enjoy. I'll grant that the music certainly isn't always my taste ("Light and Fluffy Time"), but it's good enough and secondary to the plot anyways.

The Tower of Druaga: This one surprised me, since I'd actually played the original ToD in the arcade. It's not a particularly good game- the best thing about it is the fanfare that plays before each round starts. Here I thought we were going to have our typical medieval anime, and it turned out to be reallllly funny. The first episode was hilarious, and I'm kinda kicking myself for not following up, but in my defense, I did get sidetracked by the excellent Dennou Coil and Ramen Fighter Miki. Will pick back up on later.

Speed Grapher: This was shown in a cool down session we had in our hotel room. I don't really know enough about it yet, but I would recommend it just for the dark, supernatural mood and some of the more notable aspects of it, like a camera being a weapon.

Shangri-La: Didn't get to watch too much of this, but it looks like it could be good.

AVGN: Yeah, yeah, it's not anime (well, not yet), but I do have to say one of the most fun things ever was watching Angry Video Game Nerd in a room full of fans. I'd really like to stay for the whole marathon next year, as we only caught more of his recent stuff (Action 52, Street Fighter 2010).

Food-wise, we found a couple of awesome places up the street from the convention center, and best of all, they weren't death knells for our wallets. Our first stop was Iguanas, a small mexican food restaurant housed in a...well, a house. The food was excellent though, with my Iguana Nachos being very tasty. Next year, I think we're going to actually have to bite the bullet and order a burritozilla (their 5-lb burrito) just to say we did. Bonus points to this place for having a live soul band in the next room, belting out a great rendition of D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)".

O_O

Right next door is a place called the Hydration Station, which, fittingly enough is an Asian restaurant. They had some great dishes, most less than 6 bucks. A lot of us opted for the Curry over Rice for a cool $4.50 and their seasonal Watermelon Juice with Pearls. It was all rather good, and much better than blowing the same amount on a value meal from McDonald's.

Oh, and props to Jason for blowing 40 some-odd on beers at Hilton. Next round's on me.

All in all, a great trip, though I would say my one big complaint is that it was impossible to get any decent internet speed in the rooms over ethernet. This mainly means that next year, I need to get a laptop full of media and an HDMI cord and play it that way.

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While I'm here, I might as well break out my E3 review.

Nintendo clearly had the best showing with the 3DS, but upon further review, I'm not sure the lineup's all that great. Super Street Fighter IV is a great game, but on portable? And after it's been out for how long? So, conceptually, it's awesome, but I need more concrete stuff before I consider whether to buy it or not. Leaning towards doing so, though.

PlayStation Move: Honestly, wouldn't even be interested if it weren't for Heavy Rain and Time Crisis Raizing Storm, but the allure of an ONLINE MULTIPLAYER LIGHT GUN GAME is too much to pass up. Seriously, that's incredibly awesome.

PSN+ sounds like it could actually be a great idea, but I'm still waiting to see what it's offering.

Kinect...woo, boy. There's already been numerous shitstorms over this, but the bottom line, as I've said, is marketing. That's going to determine whether or not it succeeds. I worry that it might.

As to its voice command feature:

I'm so doing that to my Xbox owning friends. >:)

I am considering picking up the 360 slim for the holidays.

Portal 2 is looking great, and one announcement that actually did shock me was the PS3 being its lead platform for consoles. Gabe Newell 180'd on his previous notion that the PS3 wasn't worth it, and now, we're even going to be getting cloud saves for P2. Very good news, though most likely I'll be on PC for Glados' second coming.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention what was my game of the show, Mortal Kombat.

Yes. You read that right. Mortal F'N Kombat.

Sure, Armageddon was an atrocity, and MK Vs. DC, while fun, wasn't enough to keep it afloat. But damned if Boon and Tobias didn't somehow get their shit together recently. Basically, the new MK (Simply titled Mortal Kombat, kinda like they did with Rambo) is going to be a revitalized 2.5d fighter, almost like a current gen version of MKII. Additions include an X-ray move, basically a super, which allows you to deal lots of damage in a heavily detailed way. One example showed Sub-Zero freezing a kombatant's liver and shattering it. Fatalities are back, and by back, I mean we're not dealing with the atrocious cookie cutter fatality system from Armageddon, nor the "heroic brutality" BS from MK Vs. DC.

No, this time, I mean Mileena drinks blood from your head. Seriously.

Also, they decided to reboot the storyline. It sounds a little convoluted, but honestly, if it gets them out of the mess they made in Deception, more power to 'em. Also, this means that any character past pt. 3 is probably not going to be in. Why is that good, that these character designs are gone? Well, they suck. And why do they suck?

Because.. THEY WERE MADE BY THE SAME GUY WHO DID THE CHARACTER DESIGNS FOR FUCKING BLOODSTORM!!!!!11!!

Really all that needs to be said. :/

I'm psyched, and I'm even considering picking up a 3D TV to enjoy the festivities. That's right, this and Gran Turismo 5 are both pushing me in that direction. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I've actually made some progress on my evil backlog. I knocked out Beyond Good & Evil, and I have to say, that's one hell of an excellent game. Good to hear Michael Ancel recently announced that the sequel does still exist and is being worked on, though per him, it will take "awhile". I also knocked out Resident Evil 4, which was a great game, though I'm starting to question the "horror" part in "survival horror". Packing an arsenal like Leon's isn't exactly a frightening prospect, though he starts out with a useless-ass handgun.

Anywho, for the meantime, I'm without computer, though I hope to remedy this come August if not sooner.

-Trakdown

P.S. SUMMER SUCKS!!!