bunisinyourmind

Super Hard delivers! Chains! Gallops! Steps that don't suck! Fabulous!

In just about an hour, I managed to clear all the "Very Hard" (read: Heavy) versions of everything in DDR: Mario Mix. It's still a nice game, but really, you don't see any difficulty until the last four or five songs from the main game, and after that, you get a bit of encore with the "secret stages" if you unlocked them, which are just more cake. Bleh.

The music's still good though, in most cases. That's what saves it. That, and that hour of work has unlocked all the Super Hard (read: Oni, kinda) versions of everything, so I can actually play on something of a non-infant level next time I hop in.

I'm also quite proud of how far Konami's soft pads have come. Their old ones were good and durable, but now down the line, they've managed to tweak the materials and texturing selection a bit to get better pads instead of going cheaper and shoddier. The Mario Mix pad is sweet, and I imagine the ones in the Ultramix 3 and Extreme 2 bundles are too.

For those of you hunting for the game as of late, word is from Nintendo that they underproduced and will have more after the holiday - I know it says discontinued in GameStop's (and probably EB's too) computers, so it might only be orderable from the Nintendo World site or whatever, like Electroplankton will be, once more quantity is out there. If you do manage to find it, tracking down a controller extension cord isn't a bad idea either. My cube is at the top of my entertainment center heap, and the cord on the pad? Kinda dinky. They're only a couple bucks used at any given GameStop, which usually has a handful of them from people who upgraded to Wavebirds.

Which reminds me, I need 3 more Wavebirds some day.

SUCK IT 150 CC MIRROR! All unlocked in Grand Prix, Mario Kart DS.

Now I might actually start playing online. >_>

Anyone out there looking to play DS games online, I suggest you help the DS Meet guys out. They're constructing a database you can sign up for so you can search for other players by region or user nickname. Pretty sweet.

Cleaned out the archives a bit and got Guitar Hero. Excuse me while I rock.

Training is DONE. For EVERYONE. I have all The Ancient weapons now. In fact, I only have two more joke items to get and I have all the weapons, period.

Cleaned out the Armor store, probably NEVER PLAYING CHRONICLES OF THE SWORD AGAIN. Made a KOS-MOS (it's obligatory if they give you the parts) swordmaster for regular play, and a Sage that looks kinda like Voldemort (hence his being named as such). I was going to try to do them based on people I know (Booty the Barbarian?) but it wasn't panning out.

Started doing rough and dirty runs through Tales Of The Sword for Gallery items; got Abyss, Zasalamel, and Ivy so far. Once I pound through to get all that crap, then I'll actually go back and fill in everyone's Event Viewer lists. And maybe get good enough with someone to fight Night Terror.

I FINALLY BEAT STRIFE. WITH A FUCKING TWO HIT HORIZONTAL CHEESEFEST. AFTER ALL THAT WORK? CHEESE.

Nintendo managed to get Masahiro Sakurai, who left to join Q? Entertainment (Meteos, Lumines), back on board to direct the next Smash Bros. game. He's still with Q? mind you, but it's good to see the man's back on the project, because he was pretty key to it in the past. Woot.

And it makes no sense to me. You can read it for yourself here, but I'll point out some highlights.

Yay!: Call Of Cthulhu, Crimson Skies, Dead Or Alive 3, Raze's Hell

WTF?: Barbie Horse Adventures, Blinx 2, BMX XXX, Catwoman, Grabbed By The Ghoulies, piles of other crap, including Yourself Fitness

Why not?: Armed & Dangerous, Burnout anything, Area 51, Dead Or Alive Ultimate, Star Wars Battlefront anything, Psychonauts

It was supposed to be for best sellers, but it seems more like a handful of those and then a pile of randomly selected shit. WHAT IS GOING ON?

In other news, it seems someone in Pittsburg killed one dude over a game of Madden 2006, and injured another. Meanwhile, no deaths have resulted from Blitz: The League, which is clearly more violent and mature-audience-oriented. Someone please start riding EA's balls kthx.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

7 levels after I SHOULD have had one, I finally mustered the change I needed to get me a mount in WoW. It's a striped nightsaber, because it kind of looks like my cat form as a druid. Good times. I hate farming.

Another product of the thrillride that was the Super Walmart last night was the presence of a 360 demo station that they actually had on despite the issues they've been citing with it buggering other Walmart in-store systems. So I played a bit of Kameo.

The demo was very tutorial-like and pandering, so I was pretty pissed off by the time they let me do some rolling. But it's pretty. Not that much prettier than the Xbox has been, but perhaps I should've tried some other demos. I would have done so if Walmart didn't have that annoying ass habit of sticking the monitor for their demo stations up just high enough so you have to crane your head back in the most uncomfortable position ever.

So yeah, I'm still waiting for the HD-DVD drive version.

And this weekend, kiddies, go to a GameStop and turn on Bark Mode in Nintendogs to recieve special glasses from the girl from Napoleon Dynamite. Yaaay. Looks like I have to find my DS to do so in the first place. Promo's running from the 28th to the 30th. I'm guessing it's a time release in the demo station or something. Chances are I'm hauling out to the Trooper or Pottstown stores and doing it at one of those, too, because I've got a bit of a reserve backlog I still cannot afford at my usual store. Aheheh. :X

I feed and bathe my Nintendogs about once a week now. I'm a terribly lazy owner.

Been busting it up in We <3 Katamari, though. I got the rose level, and have devised an ingenious method (read: bits of string holding the analog sticks just right) to basically autoroll my way to victory. I should have at least 90,000-100,000 before I let my system rest a bit. The trick is, basically, circles on snow level. Concentration of bunches is high enough that a decent loop will pick up enough every time, and you get knocked around frequently enough to new areas to avoid respawn doldrums. It's still not as terribly efficient as doing it by hand, but it's great for having to not do anything at all.

So they revealed the controller for the Nintendo Revolution.

I think it's completely batshit insane. ONLY Nintendo.

I love it. Nay, I Matt Lovett.

Nintendogs update! Because I've been playing the crap out of it and only inundating chatters who don't care with my experiences.

Current pups and progress, in Dachsund & Friends version:

Blake - Siberian Husky, first dog I got, he can practically walk the whole neighborhood at this point. Very picky about his toys, but he's already waiting on a try at the Championship level for Obedience Trials and Disc Trials, and is getting pretty good at Agility, too. Accessory as of late is the woven leather collar, 'cause it compliments his fur nicely and is classy without being excessive.

Jayne - Golden Retriever, named because I had a knit hat accessory laying around which is almost a dead ringer for the Jayne hat. I was going to wait until I could get a German Shepherd, but when I was looking for a Golden, one with the perfect personality for the name came up, so I couldn't resist. He's pretty good for obedience stuff given I've only had him about a day now. Need to get him to the park and the gym to get him geared up for other stuff.

Next on the list is Shiba Inu, which I should have unlocked at the kennel by sometime tomorrow at the latest. Dunno what to name one yet, but chances are I'm going to get a girl since the other two dogs are boys.

Other than that, haven't been playing much of anything, though I hear there's a new Classic pack for Wipeout Pure out. Need to grab that, which will continue distracting me from Death Jr. Which I might trade in towards Advance Wars DS despite having reserved the collector's edition, because I'm sorely disappointed at the lame character usage. Le sigh. Go PSP go. Keep on suckin'.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE UNIFORM SHOTS for Star Trek Online. I regrettably feel that the Conn uniforms are the lamest, but eh. I shall still be representing as Cap'n Bonk Mastiff. YOU CAN COUNT ON ME.

Apparently, it takes place after Voyager's returned, and some of the tech they brought back has been integrated into Starfleet's repertoire. This sounds promising.

There's actually a site following it pretty well right here; the images I found were in the devblog, which has an RSS feed I'm adding to my feed center to keep tabs. Yum yum.

Well this is a delightful "eff you" of sorts to all the douchebags who spazzed about Wind Waker's cel-shaded style, screaming Ocarina Of Time was the best Zelda ever blah blah blah. Emulation jockeys and rom hackers have apparently been taking old N64 roms and cel-shading the graphics, then slapping them back into playable roms. And not only have they been playing with Ocarina Of Time, but also there's a shot from a retooled Super Mario 64. I like it. Ignore the comments on the page, because it's mostly dumb fanboy/girlism, but do go to page 2 to see an awesome shot of OoT's starting village with hi-res graphics, too. Num num.

WoW updates, since I like to do them here, it seems... leveled to 37 and halfway to 38, guild got a tabard that I paid for 1/3 of the creation costs of and it looks pretty sweet. It's BLOOOOOOO. And I maxed my leatherworking at 225, so until I can hit the quests to boost it to 300 (I'm going tribal), I'm finally starting to make some mad money off selling mats. My skinning's already in the 280s, so this should be cake. Also, I've got maybe 6 places between both continents to add to my grif network; I can still remember the giggles and stares when I ran screaming into the Alliance camp in Felwood at level 20-something. That was golden. I like mapping. It's stupid and easy.

Oh, and yay, more Hot Coffee tie-in wake, sort of. 20 year old kills 3 cops and it's being blamed on GTA and an abusive childhood. Which means it's all gaming's fault, because child abuse is the American pasttime. You think they're buying those bats so their kids can hit balls and run? HA. There's hitting and running, maybe, but I hope there's no balls involved.

Normally I wouldn't make an entry this early, since it totally screws my one entry a day thing should something interesting happen later after I've gone to sleep and woken up again, but whatever. I should make this commentary while the hurting's fresh.

I watched G-Phoria. Well, listened more than watched. Godawful. Better than last year's, but still terrible. There were a few perks, but I'll get to those in a minute; first, let me vent the hate.

1) It's a bad sign when you have presenters and guests acting in-character instead of just being themselves. Tommy Chong, I pity thee.
2) I remember the first year, when they actually had some industry people, including some Japanese ones. Tetsuya Nomura, anyway. Now it's... porn stars and sports people? Wha? Weird.
3) Let the good writers do the big shows. Please.

Yeah. Not so good. Even the sake (which goes well with Mountain Dew, regular or red) didn't save it. I DID enjoy the musical guests, though. Well, two of 'em. The Bravery are AWESOME. I'd never heard them before, and they're the closest anyone nowadays comes to New Wave, I think. They technically fall somewhere between Orgy and New Order, to give a reference to their New Wave vs current status, but it's still good stuff. But of course, the audio setup didn't lend itself well to what was going on; the guitar and bass overshadowed the synth and drums too much, and the vocals were fairly washed as well. And the Black Eyed Peas are just good, even if they're not as good as they used to be. I pretty much skipped the guy they had from G-unit to get a drink. Whatever.

Other good things? They had Bill Shatner, who was obviously drunk or otherwise mentally removed from whatever was going on, present Ralph Baer's lifetime achievement award, who was equally a little gone. And sounded vaguely spiteful in his acceptance, which was awesome - the man deserves to be pissed, after how shafted he got in the 70s. Man's a genius. Brown box 4 lyfe dawgs.

Oh, and they had Ron Jeremy wearing the Mario outfit from that delightfully disturbing photoshoot he did years ago. Granted, it was for a parody of the That 70s Show stoner sequences, which was highly disappointing like the rest of the phoria, but still, just seeing the outfit back in action was worth points.

The pre-show pretty much blew, too. It's obvious Filter's writers did that one, once again making me wince and feel sorry for Diane Mizota. Oh, and Andy Milonakis is a fat jackass. Not entertaining at all. Moving on.

The POST-show, Crashing G-Phoria? That was fantastic. X-Play's writers did that one, and it was like one big X-Play sketch. With occasional asides to Tina Wood and Laura Foy actually talking about games, maybe one bit with Geoff Keighley (read: asshat), Sarah talking to Drunk Shatner (awesome), and Brendan Moran taking a couple of moments to be a pimp (beaten to death, but not bad). The best parts were the Johnny Xtreme/Ratty bits; you can't go wrong with drinking, heartwarming emotional moments (Ratty CARES, man), and dead hookers. Definitely worth a watch if you can catch it; they're reairing the whole debacle tomorrow night, and probably rerunning it a gajillion times between now and World War III. Or next year. Whichever comes first. Hard to call with this presidency ALL RIGHT STOPPING THERE MY OTHER JOURNAL'S STARTING TO LEAK IN HERE WHOOPS.

Other news... I dunno. Since I'm trying to keep this gamey... apparently Coke's releasing a Wipeout Pure download pack with in-game advertising and some new tracks. I'm hoping they release it over here too, or that the J version can be used with the US game (I know the games are region-free, but I dunno about the download content), because more Wipeout Pure is more Wipeout Pure. And I can't get enough.

For a while now, I've been disdaining the whole handheld war, saying DS has the upper hand for now but PSP will probably break sort of even around holiday time. But the August 8th entry here at the Technologist voiced some of my deep-seated fears, so I decided to take a peek at the release lists between now and Christmastime in the US to see just how dire things are.

I know I'm not the end-all authority on game purchases or quality, but it is known that I spend far too much on games to be healthy, so here're my lists of what looks buyable between now and the holidays. UMDs aren't being counted in the PSP count, since games are the real issue here.

PSP:
Death, Jr. (Which has been getting panned by critics. Great.)
Burnout Legends
MediEvil Resurrection
PopoloCrois
Bust A Move
Legend Of Heroes
Virtua Tennis
Infected
Puyo Pop Fever
Ys: Ark Of Napishtim (Which was due out in June, if I remember correctly... >_>)
Viewtiful Joe VFX Battle

11 games. Not bad, but a few of them, I'm only seeing worthwhile for the multiplayer aspects (like Puyo Pop). And that's not counting however many might get pushed back to next year.

As for DS...
Advance Wars DS
Nintendogs
Lunar: Dragon Song
Trace Memory (Another Code)
Lost In Blue
Animal Crossing DS
Metroid Prime: Hunters
Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow
Trauma Center: Under The Knife
Metroid Prime Pinball
Bust-A-Move DS
Electroplankton
Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
Mario Kart DS
New Super Mario Bros.
Viewtiful Joe DS
Mario & Luigi 2

17 games, if I count correctly. 6 isn't that big a difference, you say? Well, it is when, in the end, that means the DS is worth spending $200 more on in the games department than the PSP is. Plus, let's do a little extra math here - decent libraries already out for either system?

PSP - Wipeout Pure, Metal Gear Acid, Ape Escape (well, I liked it), Darkstalkers Chronicle, Lumines, Namco Museum Battle Collection (another one of those multiplayer > single player cases). Six good games out, and one of those is actually not technically out until the 9th.

DS - WarioWare: Touched, Kirby: Canvas Curse, Feel The Magic, Super Mario 64 (enh), Polarium (enh, but multiplayer's cool), Bomberman, Nanostray, Meteos, Mr. Driller, Puyo Pop. A full ten good games, and I could throw Pac-Pix and Retro Atari Classics in there if I weren't on the fence with them. So given a little fudgeway (and I might as well, since Darkstalkers pretty much got a bye since I like Darkstalkers period), the DS has twice as many good games out for it already as the PSP.

I'll remind you, I'm not counting the import market here; it DEFINITELY draws a little more evenly in Japan, but we're not even slated to get half the RPGs that are out for the PSP in Japan. So that's moot. And I'm worried that guy might be right. The PSP -is- bound to tank in the US if UMD sales can't keep it afloat through the holidays, and the DS is going to finish some amazing phoenix-like rebirth.

I don't agree, however, with the guy's idea of getting rid of a PSP if you've got one. Of course, I also have a crippling addiction to Wipeout Pure. If anything, do yourself a favor like I plan to and get a Nyko Theatre Experience if you've already got a PSP. Buy some movies, set that bad boy up next to your computer, and enjoy cinema while chatting and rambling self-righteously like I am right now. 'cause, you know, I need a fourth thing that can play movies in here. :D

Well, I like my WoW guild now, silly name or not. They're all pretty cool and fun in guild chat. And I won today's FABULOUS PRIZE DRAWING. Not entirely sure what it was yet, but I might check back in later tonight. Thanks, Blizzard, for making the fair come to town same time I need to be PRODUCTIVE. Bastards.

Oh, and here's to hoping there's someone selling import games at Otakon's dealer's room, so I can pick up a copy of Jump Superstars. I kind of doubt that sweetness is due to get localized anytime soon.

Let's talk WoW. Since I've been playing the crap out of it lately. I'm ornery, so it's going to be what's been bothering me in-game lately.

1) BAD TOUCH. Some people just have no sense of personal space in that game, even if it's virtual. Mostly, I'm talking about unwanted guild invites and duel challenges out of nowhere. BREAK THE ICE FIRST. I'm willing to be social if you're not cramming whatever it is you want to participate in down my throat. And that prick who I declined to duel and then did a chicken taunt? Up yours, you gnomish sack of crap. Way to be short. You probably engineer too. Loser. Go shump one of your mechanical sheep.

2) Stupid guild names. This only bothers me because I'm in a poorly named guild. Alliance Savers? Granted, I'm very frugal and wear armor I can make or find, but it still reads poorly. BUT, I might add, I'm a charter signer BECAUSE the person making the guild ASKED ME before pointing the charter at me. And they're good kids, for the most part.

3) Speaking of found items... I look as bad in hats in Azeroth as I do on Earth. I don't get it. I got a stupid looking cowl for a while, and now I found a leather cap to replace it. Which also looks stupid. ;_; At least in reality, I have my tremendously oversized head to blame. This sucks.

This journal needs an icon and some pics, methinks. Oh yeah, if anyone cares who, what, and where I play before I post said pics, feel free to leave comments.

What else have I been playing besides WoW? Nanostray. I beat a level. At F rank. I rule. Considering how historically awful I am at shooters, just clearing it is an accomplishment. BTW, it was the water world. I'm all for blowing up waterworld.

I'll probably be subjecting you all to shots of my in-progress cosplay stuff for Otakon, btw. Since both are game related. Mwahahaha.