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| Friday, July 10th, 2009 |
theunicursalhex
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12:29p |
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freakservo
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9:04a |
My Take On The P&T Ep...
...Hm... So I finally did sit down and watch that Videogame Violence episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit... And honestly, for starters, I wasn't aware of how graphic the more violent games have become. Yeah, I do play games like Gears Of War and - to a lesser extent - GTA4, but I've always associated the fantasy/reality differentiation that was driven home by the show: Gears had aliens who wanted to shoot back, and GTA had a radio station that plays rock (As of last year, K-Rock no longer airs in New York City). ...Okay, I partially kid. Truth is, I can't really describe what separates the fantasy of a major violent game with the reality of...well...violence...But I can feel it. There's something in the game that makes me think "...Somethings not right". I admit, from a passive standpoint, I see these dismember-heavy games and I can understand how someone could look at the kid playing them and think he's being influenced. But maybe it's a different experience when you're actually playing the game. Again, there's this separation of fantasy and reality that becomes even more prevalent when you're playing the game directly. To stray from the topic a bit, my problem was never really about the excessive blood and gore - If that were the case, I would've never enjoyed Mortal Kombat - But whether or not the game does anything different gameplay-wise to make it stand out...Like, for example, Fatalities. But even that, right there, shows some evidence of fantasy...Is it even possible to rip someone's head off with the spine intact? Forget the ability to fire-breath your opponents to death. My concern has never been about how much blood is shed, but whether or not there's any fun in doing so. I didn't give a flying damn about FPS games until Bioshock, and only then did I begin to go back and appreciate Half-Life 2 - A game with significantly less mutilation and carnage than Soldier Of Fortune. Hell, for all the association with the 'Videogame Violence' category that Halo gets, there really isn't so much falling of alien life-force that I recall. Hell, I don't even remember dismemberment playing a role in the first two games! I think, ultimately, Penn nailed it on the head by reversing the roles of football and videogames. Football...a physical, outside sport promoted by local schools as a required healthy activity...Also has its deal of broken bones and head-trauma. Not even Baseball is safe once you're looking down the stitching 98-mile-per-hour slider. And don't get me started on Soccer...Your own country could shoot you dead if you fuck up! Personally, I still prefer Mario to Manhunt, Dynamite Headdy to Doom. And while I doubt this episode will be the end-all-be-all to this pointless argument, I hope, at the very least, it will keep the activists quiet, if even only for a little while. |
freakservo
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5:18a |
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| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 |
theunicursalhex
|
7:01p |
Poetry time...
This is a quiet house. No music plays here. No declarations of love are given. Only the sound of the spinning world, That will stop the curling ocean with a buzz. Why expect anything more from it? The floors creak with memory, The beams sink and can't hold the weight, It waits for its dead owner to knock on the door But that noise never comes. Its future uncertain, either bulldozer or silence, Either the strict pound of hammers Or the crushing blow of nothingness Despite its years of service Hugging families in its hands. It attended it all, yet wasn't seen Its walls invisible and its heart oak Aching to find a touch to its wallpaper Arching to find heaven, as rats run Garbage is all that it now knows. It is a quiet house. No yelling of children in the yard. Material possessions lie about Discarded, like youth, once adored The groan of the floorboads Asks me to stay for a while and be warmed. So I do. I sit and wonder the architecture Of a dream gone wrong. |
freakservo
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9:46p |
Bullshit Reminder
I haven't felt much like writing today, and for obvious reasons. But I will tell you that, as of this posting, the Videogame Violence episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit starts in 10 minutes. If you don't carry the Showtime channel (As I don't), a torrent link to the episode shall be forthcoming, That is all. |
fiercepancake
|
5:13p |
Rock Baby Rock It
Sat., July 11 - The Ninth Annual Rock Baby Rock It!, featuring Los Benders, Almon Loos & the Hoop and Hollers, The Haymakers, Luxurious Panthers, The Octanes, Dykes On Bykes, Panic Doll Burlesque, The Ghost Storys, The Von Dukes, Clouseaux, The Grass Skirts, Kon Tikis, The Steven Reynolds Band, Johnny Gunhand, DJ Big E, & Mr. Telephone Road @ The Continental Club/The Big Top (2PM-2AM) --- Not sure what time we play, I think at 7pm.... |
freakservo
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4:02a |
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 |
ferricide
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4:43p |
toripuru toripuru toripuru
 reflecting on the tandy 1000 HX. realizing that this is the first time in 20 years i have not had a PC with a microsoft OS. the tandy 1000 HX was a stupid computer with a crappy featureset. but it was pretty cheap for the time. my mom would listen to me about what hardware to buy; problem was, i was a kid and i just wanted what i saw at the store and though i could wheedle out of her. bigger pics here. a weird system. it was too small to put a monitor on so you had to buy a monitor stand if you wanted it to sit on top (helpfully, radioshack sold those, too.) it was really hard to expand, but the people who published ads in the back of computer magazines sold unofficial upgrades. i (successfully) got a serial port onto it (RS232C!) and rocked a 2400 baud modem (external.) all tandy sold was an internal 1200. conversely, i ordered a hard drive kit from a mail order company and couldn't get it to work. fortunately, they let me return it. the tandy had a suite of software called deskmate that was partially built into the BIOS so you couldn't load it on non tandy systems. heh. i still have some of the pictures i drew, recovered off of those floppies i found over christmas, and i was able to convert them using a PERL script to something you can actually view in 2009. but they're too lame to post. we replaced the tandy with a 386SX in 1989. we sold the 1000 HX to one of my dad's coworkers; his wife as an elementary school teacher and she wanted to use it to prepare stuff for school. i hope it worked out for her. i remember going to the house to set it up for them. the 386SX-16, again, was underpowered but available (i bought it from the computer department at boscov's, a local department store chain.) it was called the PC partner and had the best keyboard ever (except maybe the IBM model M) and was a strange purplish grey with purple accents. oh, 1991. what was it with purple (SNES!) i wanted the PC because i liked its industrial design. not a great way to shop for computers. but i guess it works for apple. |
theunicursalhex
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3:49p |
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theunicursalhex
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3:46p |
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theunicursalhex
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1:43p |
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echoboom
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12:28p |
18 months ago, i had completed two years worth of chemo, radiation therapy ,and a stem cell transplant that left me broken, bitter, alienated, depressed, angry and thinking if life ended, that would be allright... now, now life is much better--but i cant really get it all that cause im going surfing for the third straight day Current Music: U2 - No Line On The Horizon |
freakservo
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5:43a |
Post Meme: Da-Aren-Marie
*Checks meme* Pff! How come nobody replies unless I'm pissing off or angering people!? Am I really that expendable to you folks? *sigh* Well, anyway, one person DID reply, and sadly enough, it's game-related. Not to say what she asked me to write about is a bad choice, but I started the meme to get some variety rolling around here... Her reply was actually three topics in one, and I suppose I'll just answer them individually, so...: "The dude in your icon!"Oh, Holland Mackray? That's from the "Rally King" games in "Retro Game Challenge"! If the dude has a Japanese name, I'm unaware of it. ...That's right! Dia's from the Phillipines; RGC was never released outside the US! If you have a DS Lite, you'll have to invest in an R4 card or something similiar! It's a crime that this game never made it to Europe, but we in the US should be lucky we got an English version at all! How you stumbled upon Game Center CX!Wow...I got so quickly wrapped-up in the show's premise that I've completely forgotten! Think...Think... It may have been when the game was first released in Japan. This was about...a year-and-a-half ago? I had heard nor seen anything about the show prior, and when the retro gaming fans started melting over this new DS import, I did some research. I discovered this regularly-updated English episode guide and found its premise...from challenging videogames to visiting popular arcade centers across the country...something I'd love to do, if given the opportunity. To be able to sample everything from obscure game consoles to rare arcades like some videogame connoisseur...Oh, that would be a wonderful dream come true... What games you would like to challenge!My problem with game challenges is that I don't have the endurance for marathon runs. At least, not anymore. At the height of my obsession, I could've probably sat in front of the TV screen for about 6 hours at a time. Now, my sessions don't usually run for more than two hours. If it's a situation where I want to keep gaming, I have to switch off to something different before going back to the first game. All that said, I don't know what games I'd like to challenge, as I suppose it would require a game that I either 1) Haven't played before or 2) Never beaten. I suppose Mike Tyson's Punch-Out fits the latter requirement, and those Cactus-designed Mondo games would be perfect for the former. And I suppose if it's a longer game that I do know my way around...like Starfox Adventures or Beyond Good & Evil... I may one-day attempt a beginning-to-end marathon with one of those. ...Oh! Oh! But you know what ELSE I'd like to try? Donating a few hours of my time to the "Desert Bus For Hope" charity! I'd be more than willing to endure the pain for a good cause! |
ferricide
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1:17a |
games!
apparently, if you turn on your playstation 3, that's what happens. games. i did, and three happened to me... in just one night! i am just going to cut this post now. this post covers three games in varying levels of detail. of course, there's always hidden omake and fanservice in these posts, so you never know what you're missing if you don't click, for... GAIASEED! a rare playstation shooter that costs upwards of ¥25000 in akihabara now! KILLZONE2! a depressingly common playstation 3 shooter that will cost $5 in gamestop in 2014! BLAZBLUE! a relatively attainable game that will probably be like $20 once asw farts out one or two minor upgrades. ( HAAAAAAI MAJIDE! ) |
| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 |
ferricide
|
6:08p |
Ruins of the Second Gilded Age
 new york times photojournal on dead construction projects caught in the economic maelstrom.
i could say something but i think the title, reproduced above, pretty much says it all -- the rest is at the link (click the pic).haha wow fail nyt! yeek. |
ferricide
|
10:34a |
moider
murder and games is a subject i hit on when i was thinking about how much of popular media revolves around murder stories, but how few games outside of point'n'click adventures/visual novels/etc actually manage to take it in. so i thought about why. then i wrote this editorial about it. |
freakservo
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8:18a |
*Looks At Previous Post*
....Tarnation and blimey, I KNOW I can talk about more than videogames... I've tried this meme recently before (With absolutely zero results! Beh!), but I'll try it again... If you folks have a topic you wish for me to discuss, just make a reply below. I shall dedicate a post all about whatever it is you want me to write about! If it's something you're not comfortable talking about in public, it shall be put behind a friends-only tag and in an LJ-cut. If you just have a question to ask, ask away. If you wanna talk about your pet cat, an entire post will be made about Mr. Fluffles. If you have an uncharacteristic obsession with Fidel Castro's beard, then let's discuss how we can put that fantastic facial hair on T-shirts! Relax. Go nuts!Make me proud! |
freakservo
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6:28a |
Today We Talk About Daffodils....Just Kidding!
Man, why is every videogame developer out there so flakin' prudish? Now even ICO/Shadow Of The Colossus superbeing Fumitsu Ueda is on the criticism bandwagon. At least he had the kindness to admit he's a harsh critic, but...Is Miyamoto the only person not to exude any long-standing arrogance? Even he eventually admitted that insisting on a cartridge format for the N64 wasn't the best idea he's ever insisted on... My sister's really gotten me into this 1 Vs 100 beta on Xbox 360. Yeah, you would think the name itself would be a turn-off, but very rarely is a videogame based on a gameshow better than the gameshow itself! And hey-it's a free download! Who's it gonna hurt! There are a couple of things that really stand out for me about the beta, chief amongst them being that it follows a live schedule. It's like those Satelleview stories I keep reading about: The game, much like the show based on it, is only available during prime-time hours (Usually about 8-11PM, but some days it goes for longer). Each game lasts a half-hour, but you can join in at any time, there is no limit to how many people can join, and you are free to leave at any time. During a single game, you are given a series of multiple-choice questions, which - I am told - are constantly updated, so the selection never gets stale, like those old NES Jeopardy games. Over the course of the half-hour, your scored is tallied along with everyone else in the room, and the more people who fail at the question, the more valuable the correct answer is. After every 10 question, the game breaks for a couple of minutes for the odd commercial advertising and stat-check. An entire half-hour game consists of about 35-40 questions depending on time, and the winner gets...Well, nothing at the moment. Currently, the more questions you get right, the more chances you get in an as-of-yet-determined raffle for prizes. But... BUT...Starting this week, specific shows WILL begin to give away prizes to the winner, like MS Points and cars and such. Now, usually, each game is a series of general trivia, but the 11PM show is a specific topic of questions. For example, last night's 11PM show was entirely made of trivia as provided by the 1 Vs 100 community members. Tonight, it's "Superhard" trivia! Alas, the fun can only last so long, and once final show has been played...uhm...The game no-longer becomes available. Seriously, it sits on your harddrive, inaccessible until the next evening. It doesn't appear in your game library menu like everything else does, and while you can still find it in the memory section of your system settings, you can't do much with it. The game doesn't exist in the usual Xbox Live Arcade sections, and if you try to access it through the game-specific window, you'll only be allowed to schedule a reminder for when the game starts up again. I wonder if that's what Satelleview owners went through back in the late '90s...The concept of a videogame with online components that are only available for a short period of time per day...It's such an alien and fascinating concept to me... If Nintendo really wanted to, they could use the Wii's online connectivity to re-issue BS Zelda No Densetu through the Virtual Console, or maybe even as a WiiWare title. Geez, Nintendo, do you even listen to your fans? Some of the things we say...It's a license to print money. Or perhaps... even more money. Hm, what else...Hrm...Still plugging away at Sonic Unleashed...LocoRoco 2 continues to be interesting...The Cave Story blog has started updating again (*GASP!*) ...And suddenly I feel ill. I'm gonna go lie down. |
| Monday, July 6th, 2009 |
ferricide
|
11:41p |
bop
andrew vestal bought and played and wrote about a brilliant-sounding adventure game in the classic SCUMM mold. it is called "time, gentlemen, please!" which made no sense to me until it was explained that this is what people say instead of "last call" in the UK. so hit that link and find out more if a mix of uncomfortable british humor and clicking on things sounds as though it might please you. it is a prime reason i am considering bootcamping this maccy. |
ferricide
|
11:16p |
mac life is rubbish
not really, but it's catchy!  a clickable pic of my mac desktop in its 1920x1080 crazy glory for your amusement. so i spent way too long dealing with getting the data i wanted off of my external NTFS (windows format) drive and onto my mac and then either burned to DVD+R, or, as i am still doing right now, shunted back onto the drive now that it's mac OS formatted. hooray for shitty shits. but it's basically all but sorted out right now. one thing i will say: formatting a drive on a mac is a lot more arcane than on a PC. macs are generally slicker and easier to deal with, but sometimes the Alien Brain People (aka engineers) devise a feature and then it's like, what? i had to download a PDF on how to format a FUCKING DRIVE from the people who made my drive. that has never happened to me in a microsoft OS. oh well. quirky! all seems to be well. i named my drive 弐号機 which i guess is cute or something. seems odd to be doing eva references but those are the times we live in. the icon is orange so i guess it should be 零号機 but we all know i prefer asuka. and yui creeps me out. anyway, almost all is well in chateau du maq. i just need to get that keyboard, and the 4GB of RAM i ordered, and then everything should be almost screamingly peachy. and we can resume normal non-boring blog service at that time. well, it'll be boring, but it'll be less boring and about something else. cha-ching! |
ferricide
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5:55p |
jamietoperation
this is absolutely the best song i heard last year that nobody but nobody else i knew ever acknowledged the existence of. it was on a (go figure) Q best of britishy britishface music CD. the album it comes from is pretty 3-starrish, but this track is a major major standout. it just comes up on my iPod shuffle and rocks me rockingly rock and then goes away. a crazy fusion of british indie and rap and reggae (dub? i don't know this shit!) and god knows what. catchy and messy. |
theunicursalhex
|
4:31p |
I don't get it. I have extremely great news, but no one to tell it to. |
ferricide
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11:13a |
now that you're back at work and missing the long weekend
i didn't want to post this over the weekend because it seemed that online activity was really low. it's a feature interview with hiroshi matsuyama, president, cyberconnect 2. cyberconnect2 developed, among other things, tail concerto, silent bomber, .hack, .hack//G.U., and the naruto ultimate ninja games. wait, i don't think there are "other things" since i just listed them all. for some reason i am not fully able to explain i became really really interested in tail concerto in the lead up to its launch on the PS1 and played it immediately when it came out in japan. in fact, i bought a dual shock controller to play the game since it was the first game for the PS1 i played which supported it. it's a really charming but questionably fun 3D platformer. the company's next game, silent bomber, is really excellent. it's an original action title that i actually don't remember very well besides being totally addicted to it when i finally got around to playing it in 2002, i think, after i got laid off. it's one of those games i'd encourage people to go back and check out, especially if it were on PSN (it is in japan.) of course, we all know my relationship with .hack. so i'll skip the descriptions here. i first met matsuyama in 2002 at E3. he was there at the bandai booth to promote .hack. milky had roped me in to helping him out with appointments at that E3 for no pay (which i did anyway, to bolster my chances with EGM.) one of the meetings i ended up taking was the matsuyama/uchiyama (daisuke, bandai producer) interview. milky and i really got along with them. .hack was a month out for release in japan at that point, and when it did come out, matsuyama signed and inscribed and fedexed two copies of the game to milky -- one for me. over the years i interviewed matsuyama a number of times. i became an obsessive .hack otaku only to become sick to death of the series in the end, despite still loving it at the same time, and totally skipping .hack//G.U. and the .hack//Roots anime series because i was burnt out. (generally as well as specifically, by that point!) i've probably spoken to matsuyama like six times at this point. memorably rannie set up one meeting as a formal japanese lunch during TGS, on the top floor restaurant of the makuhari prince hotel. the sum total of questioners turned out to be me, milky, and vestal, and since i knew milky wouldn't use the interview, and vestal didn't have a publication, i just threw the whole thing up on gamespy. (at that point i was freelancing TGS for them.) and look, here's my E303 interview with matsuyama. just, because. and why not: here's another gamasutra Q&A about naruto. and then one from gamesradar. google is wonderful. anyway, since matsuyama had a talk at GDC this year i was determined to get a really meaty interview out of the guy. it's not obviously always apparent from the transcribed text, but he's really eloquent and clearly determined. he has a funny showy way of speaking and shows a lot of personality.  tgs 2005. matsuyama 2nd from left. 2nd from right, daisuke uchiyama, producer of all of his games, publisher sideanyway, i think the interview (good interpretation!) shows how strong his personality and ideals are, which is pretty cool. at this point CC2 has grown up to the point where it has 3 active teams and is producing CG anime (!!) as well as games. anyway, that's my deal. i dunno when or where i'll talk to him again (TGS?) i wonder what's in store. .hack next gen? it would be preferable to star ocean. |
freakservo
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9:14a |
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freakservo
|
8:20a |
WiiWare For The Wealthy
Okay...Okay...gotta do some math... Provided I can figure out how, WiiWare is actually going to suck me dry of funds this week...*sigh*...and after I already got LocoRoco 2 and Patapon 2... Alright, So Final Fantasy 4: The After Years gets three new stories today, at 300 Wii NINTENDO points each (Guh, I'll never get used to that...). Also out today is Bit. Trip Core, at 600 points, and Bust-A-Move Plus, at another 600. Bust-A-Move Plus already comes with 135 puzzles, but in true Square Enix fashion, comes with two additional DLC packs, increasing the game by another 270 puzzles. Now, provided that these packs are also 300 points apiece... So that would be...2700 points...and since the Nintendo shop channel only allows increments of 10$ at the lowest...That's 30$...And who knows what surprises are in store for this week's XBLA... ... ...Ugh, I'm gonna have to start killing more prostitutes. I hope I've cleaned my crossbow. |
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