Hammerin' Hero (PSP)

Despite how little of this I have played, I like it a lot more than Prinny: Can I Really be the Hero?  The controls are definitely tighter, where Prinny had really floaty jumps and made it awkward to do any attacks.

The theme for this game and previous games in the series is JAPAN JAPAN NIPPON ICHIBAN.  You'll understand if you play it, and you should give it a shot.  There are 4 difficulties though you can only select the middle two at the beginning.  I went with the higher difficulty and you have 3 one hit kill tries to beat the level.  Nothing in it is so difficult after a few tries.  The game really doesn't activate my patience for whatever reason, and I will generally quit the game after one or two game overs.  Prinny did a better job of holding my interest, where I kept hoping it would get better. This game is perfectly adequate.

Sands of Destruction (DS)

Let's get real for a second guys.  <b>Sands of Destruction</b> is some bullshit.  It led me in with a nice twist "Destroy the World instead of save it" but it dropped that plot thread real fast to have me go through some dungeons and caves and swamps.  There's a second pause between each spoken line of dialog, a lot of that dialog is laughably bad.  It's got Mitsuda doing the soundtrack but after hour 3 I just didn't even care that the winning battle theme is pretty much the same as the Chrono Trigger winning battle theme.

Then the battle system is incomprehensible.  I don't mean like a SaGa game, where there are wire-fu mathetics going on in the background.   I just fought a boss that got EIGHT TURNS IN A ROW.  I couldn't even tell what counted as a turn.  He had a move that gave him MORE TURNS.  He could also attack me during that same turn.  It's like when you're fighting Ryu online and they do a combo that takes away 60% of your life and then they focus attack you and do the combo for less damage and you go "why am I even bothering" and go to the bathroom mid match.

Oh, and it has frequent random battles that eventually become soul draining in the actual maze of levels.  That's why I didn't even care I was listening to Mitsuda. 

This boss I'm stopping the game at, because I <i>deserve</i> better in entertainment, was right after a boss that would get seven turns in a row and he didn't even have special "give me turns" move.  Like I would look on the chart and my MURDEROUS TEDDY BEAR would be next, but nope!  fuckwad with terrible voice actor gets another turn. 

Bare Knuckle 3 (Megadrive), Valis I (Megadrive)

I've finally played Bare Knuckle 3/Streets of Rage 3 .  I'd some how avoided playing it all these years.  Maybe because Streets of Rage never set my mind on fire, despite how much I love Yuzo Koshiro.  Between 2 and 3 and hell between 1 and 2 there are hardly any new enemies, and you'll fight the same enemies maybe slightly less than you would in 2 and 1.  Well, Bare Knuckle 3 has the horrible walking gay stereotype as the first mid-boss.

Also evident in that video is how much more empty the backgrounds are in BK3.  Streets of Rage 2 has some lovely backgrounds, and for some people excellent music.  BK3's music is well strange.  It also has a stage set in a nightclub which is accurately annoying as being in a nightclub.  If it had been a PC game BK3 would be BK2's inferior map pack.

Even if you get to play as a Kangaroo.  Wait.  That sort of proves my point.  Also the bulldozer section is just complete bullshit.

Valis is a series I've never gotten into.  I figured I should start the schoolgirl with a sword series from the beginning.  HG101 has already done an excellent job talking about the series.  I played until I had to continue against an enemy that seemed like it could kill me at it's convenience. The mechanics aren't type enough for what the game asks you to dodge, and trying to play it safe would cause every boss to drag-on for minutes.  Every other boss battle got by just fine with attrition.  GameFAQs tells me I was on the right track, but I was dying before I could use it.  It wasn't exactly a Treasure game.

Star Fox Adventures (Gamecube)

Hey I got my gamecube back!  So now I can revisit what remains of my library there.  I had previously given this Gamecube to a friend then moved to Japan.  Then I got a Gamecube there for less than 20 bucks and played some Super Mario Sunshine on it.

I also played through Eternal Darkness on it and still feel that game fails as a video game.

So Star Fox Adventures was supposed to be called Dinosaur Planet and be one of the last games on the N64.  It was moved to the Gamecube had a Nintendo licensed slapped on it and put out.  I played it way back then and enjoyed it as a 12 hour Zelda-like adventure.

Now as an adult, it's completely retarded.  It a stegosaurus tells me to check out a store nearby.  I then proceed to enter a cave,  climb down a rock face, jump up a ledge ,and talk to a ghost-dinosaur.  As I enter the actual store I get a title card "Spine-tail Store" .  There's no way in hell the dinosaur that just told me about the store could enter it.  In fact that there are any buildings at all is baffling.  Outside of the evil dinosaur everything else is just a normal dinosaur that can talk. 

"In a hidden sector of the Lylat System".  The Lylat System - just in the Star Fox games - is more populated than the Corellian System. Then Fox and company get sent on a mission to rescue Dinosaur planet, but first I had to fly through a gold ring to get through a defense field.

With characters this fuzzy, a plot like that looks particularly retarded.  Also why is our supposedly world trotting do gooder female counter part dressed like Tarzan's Jane?

Then the shit you collect has just completely retarded names.  Why have all the dinosaurs have explanative names like "Sky-walker" "big teeth" and then I have to collect shit like Dumbledang Pods and Kazooa Spirits. The PA strip still applies.

Since this has been hanging for 30 minutes let's go ahead and post it.

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex (PSP)

I played the first level a few days ago.  Then I asked myself, "Do you want to play an FPS on the PSP? Really?"  "No, I guess not."  "Better send it back then!"

Pineapple Express (David Gordon Green) and Once Upon A Time in America (Sergio Leone)

The only thing these two films have in common is that I turned off both of them an hour in. 

I liked Superbad.  I thought it was hiliarious.  The dialog was clever and it never really dragged.  Pineapple Express like Step Brothers features completely insane human beings.  That's fine, but as soon as the main character recognizes the person is insane merely by going, "What?" and looking confused you've lost me.  That's not a reaction, that's the audience's reaction.  It's also not comedy or drama.  You're allowing these insane characters to exist in a vacuum within the main plot.  PE has wildly different genres hitting each other at full speed and there isn't an explosion.  They just cancel each other out. 

I turned it off when a truancy officer arrests our stoner main characters after a completely pointless scene in which they sell weed to kids and then have a dance off.   The MC then explains what has happened to him to that point, and the other stone attempts to rescue him after the police officer decides to help him.

I've never cared for films in which idiots screw themselves in the face of salvation. I prefer when their fuckups prevent ever coming into contact with salvation.  There's also a scene where a man, upon deciding that his daughter's boyfriend is high gets his shotgun and opens fire on the man in his own kitchen.

And just read the wikipedia plot summary.  Holy shit glad I got out.  I forgot to mention this movie is over two hours long.  It has a nice trailer though.

Oh that dumpster scene is like 2 minutes long.

Once Upon A Time in America I had high hopes for.  It's Sergio Leone, making a movie about New York Gangsters instead of a western.  It's the last movie he made!  It's gotta be great.  It's...4 hours long.  I actually watched the first 20 minutes of disc 2 before even realizing it was disc 2. 

It was kind of discordant mess.  It starts with them shooting a friend of theirs.  Then Robert DeNiro asks if James Woods wants to go for a swim.  Then DeNiro drives the car off a pier.  End of scene.  Next scene a union guy is getting tortured and DeNiro and Woods save him.

Then I started disc one.  It was an hour of DeNiro and a teenager playing DeNiro being sad.  After an hour I didn't care.  I was waiting for something that I cared about to happen.  It didn't.  I'm curious if the 90 minute butchered version is actually a better film.  I tried to talk to people saying I turned it off after an hour, and they yelled at me and would do nothing towards making me watch the other 3 hours outside of ridicule. 

Yeah that was going to change my mind.

Rocket Slime (DS)

Been busy wasting time getting trophies in multiplayer Dog Days for...whatever reason.  I got those trophies now, so my penis MUST be bigger.

While I was waiting for matches to start, I picked Rocket Slime back up.  I put it down before because it was just too easy.  It fit the role of distraction before playing another game pretty well though.  It has fantastic sprite work.  Everything is beautifully animated.  That's...really all there is to say about it.  If you want a really easy game with nice sprites, well it's there for you. 

Let's try that again EGM style:

Rocket Slime is a very easy Zelda-like.  The titular Rocket's entire village has been kidnapped by gangster platypi.  Now he has to stretch to defeat them.  The tank battles make good use of the DS's dual screens.  Good for younger gamers, but Dragon Quest and animation fans will appreciate the sprite work.

Now I'm trying Inazuma Eleven.  Seeing as I have never watched a full soccer match, I doubt I will get far in it.  It is fully voiced (!) and has furigana (!).  I wasn't expect the earlier in a DS game.

Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions (PS3)

As much as I enjoyed co-oping Lost Planet 2, I'm going to pass on Lost Planet 1 after one level.  It didn't feel right to be commiting genocide on those bugs.  In fact it felt wrong.  Sure one of them killed my father, but now I have amnesia.  I'm killing them just because.  Good Job making me feel awful Capcom.

Killzone 3 (PS3) Demo Side

It's an amazing that game with this high production values and it never feels like I'm looking at anything or anywhere.  While I got the mildest of recognition for "Shoot the Hinges" my prouder moment comes from the Killzone 2 demo.  That demo is rife with a 13 year old's use of profanity.  At the end of some shit your teammate asks you cover him while he unlocks a door.  So I got next to him, put my back to his back and proceeded to cover him.  After about a minute of not shooting anything I peeked around the corner and saw the Heleghast running around the area I just got done fighting through.  None of them were coming up the stairs and around the corner to where my friend was.  I went back to covering.  After another 30 seconds I set the controller down.

The door was still locked.  I went and got a drink and came back.  I checked my email.  I went to the post office and mailed a package.  My avatar remained covering my buddy, who had now been unlocking a door for 40 minutes.  I popped out and shoot down half the enemy.  "Just a little bit more."  I went back to covering.  I used the bathroom.  I came back and there was one enemy finally coming up the stairs to shoot at me, I rushed picked up the controller and shot him down.  "Just a little bit more".

At this point it was kind of depressing.  As slowly as possible I killed the remaining glowy eyed nazi equivalents.  As soon as the last one flopped to the ground, "I got it!"  Demo over.  BUY KILLZONE 2 NOW.

So just now I played the Killzone 3 demo.  They've toned down the profanity, but there's a Playstation 1 RPG style pause between each line of dialog.  "We gotta take down that AA Gun." ... "Roger that."  "What's our next objective?"  ...  "We need to rescue Professor Humpalump."  ...  "Look out RPG."  ... "aaaaaahhhhh."

I almost restarted the demo so I could record it because my teammate says, "Come on, Stand on my hands."  I had to stop for a second or thirty.  "Stand on your hands?!"  Well now I had to honor the time honored tradition of shooting your teammates.  He never recognized that I was shooting him.  I did get to see him splatter motor oil on the ground.  Dudes so tough they bleed motor oil and gain 30 pounds between the in-game FPS sections and the cinematic cutscenes.

Why bother meticulously animating me climbing on to a wall and pulling my partner up if you're going to have the next scene be a cinematic?  I'm really happy the game actually gives me a body (which I don't think you have in the multiplayer...hmm.)  The problem is I can only see my ?left? leg at a 90 degree angle so it looks like it's twisted.  My shadow at least assumes I have two legs, but I think I'm running like it's Garry's Mod.

It is 2011 and the demo doesn't have online co-op.  It is 2011 and there are only two control schemes available.  The two schemes in which only two items are switched.  Come on let me configure the control scheme however I damn well please.  And twitter tells me you can't even play the move version with your left hand.  Freaking geniuses.