TFO.net Supplemental

More Blatant Advertising!!

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:09:28 GMT

Hey, all. I'm still not dead, and I still am doing daily entries over at the new main site. My purpose here this time, sadly, is to raise awareness of another one of my crazy projects. Rather than tell you about all the technical crap that's been done so far, just watch this video where I ramble about the technical crap and show it off.

The ultimate goal is to make a visual novel. I am mostly done with the core mechanics of doing so. Now I need artwork and music... and to properly write the story. That's later, I think.

Anyone interested in drawing up a f$%#ton of art?

Let's Play Reader Making Game

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:27:47 GMT

Hey, all. I aten't dead, just very focused on the new sites right now. Speaking of that, if you haven't been over to read the first chapter of A Civics Lesson as it's been posted, then now's a great time to start. I'm running a contest, and a short amount of reading and a little bit of hyperlink love could win you a $20 gift card to the gaming service of your choice (or Amazon if you're into that sort of thing). Please go over and take a look.

Please.

I'm kind of desperate here. I hate shilling myself like this but it's really kind of come down to this. Yes, I am essentially buying attention. I feel just as dirty as you think I ought to, really.

Next stop: corporate-sponsored tattoos on highly visible body parts!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:39:01 GMT

Welcome to 2009, everyone. I'll make this short, because I still need to do the December Game Report at some point (short version: 40 games, fulfilled my goals, not doing it again), but also because I'm kinda hungry.

In 2009 I'll be using this LJ for private stuff. So, really, this is probably the last entry that's going to be public; everything else will likely be friends-only or completely private. I'm doing this to simply acknowledge the fact that I almost never use it.

It's also due to the fact that I've started two completely different sites; one familiar, one not so much. The familiar, then, would be johnzeitler.com, where my 'public' blog is going to live from now on. It's less scarring to a potential employer than, say, TheFurryOne.net (which has done nothing but become increasingly inaccurate since 2003).

The new project, though, is one I'm the most hyped about. Remember that novel that I keep blathering on about? Yeah, the one I've been trying to write for years now? Well, if you have about three minutes a day in 2009, you can read it. Linguankery.com is a site I created originally to be a writing-centric blog where people could get tips on how to write better. Then I decided that was a silly idea, and converted it into a place where I would post my novel, piece-by-piece, over the course of 2009. The novel is titled A Civics Lesson, and while it might be pulp, I think it's at least worth showing off.

Anyway, catch you cats sometime next week with the last Game Report, and then... we'll see.

Big Scary Writing Project Done

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:16:46 GMT

So yeah, I just finished the last chapter of that story I was writing. That was the hard part, boys and girls-- the easy part is, over the next eleven days, getting all the infrastructure in place for the web site changes I want to do for the new year. But not this weekend. This weekend, I have only one thing planned: beautiful, glorious slacking.

Shoot The Core

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:52:01 GMT

(Sorry for the long, uncut diatribe, folks, but I am too pissed off about this to risk it going under the radar.)

This afternoon, I put up a post on the main page as a bit of a social experiment, under controlled conditions. The post was, primarily, only two words, with a sarcastic explanation shortly thereafter. I will be the first to admit that, at the time, it was not clear what the purpose of the experiment was, and I will further admit that maybe the explanation afterwards was inappropriately leading towards the response I expected to get. I never laid claim to being a serious social scientist. Still, as flawed as it is, the experiment proves the point I had coming into it: the gaming community is, in its current state, terminally ill.

Allow me, if you will, to set the stage for this revelation. Over the past two years, the release of the final two entrants in the current hardware generation has created a circumstance not seen since the days of the 16-bit rivalry between Nintendo and Sega. The key difference in this modern iteration of the so-called console war is twofold: first, the landscape has shifted to a three-way struggle for market share; and second, features previously considered outside of the normal purview of a home video game console have taken a larger role in the proceedings. However, stripping away all these externalities and all the circumstances surrounding what has turned out to be one of the most divisive periods in our hobby's history, the fact remains that, for lack of better phrasing, "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again." The root cause of the current division among the former community can be traced back to simple hype.

Hype is a powerful force, and if mismanaged or allowed to run roughshod over the final product, it will destroy video gaming as both a hobby and as a for-profit industry. I cannot stress this point enough. The video game industry has developed nothing in the past decade as compelling or as saddening as their powerful, all-consuming addiction to hype.

I suppose that defining "hype" should be my priority before I continue. Hype goes beyond mere marketing and advertising. A company can plaster their commercials all over prime time television, making them as invasive and pervasive as their budgets will allow, and they can still be seen as not contributing significantly to the hype poisoning. Where promotion crosses the line into hype, however, is the content and the context of these advertisements. Hype is advertising that doesn't so much sell the product as it convinces a consumer that their particular demographic wants the product, and only their demographic. Hype is, without exception, exclusionary advertising.

However, it is difficult to find examples of advertisements which explicitly use such tactics. Print magazines and television sponsorships are still subject to editorial oversight and standards and practices boards, to a point where an ad explicitly espousing an exclusionary viewpoint will likely be killed before it airs. Instead, the Internet has provided all the unregulated advertising capability that the industry needs to feed its hype addiction. News outlets for the game community, as well as game-centric blogs, often receive press releases direct from the companies themselves, and these are also often presented without alteration direct to the reader. The language in these releases can sometimes have more of an effect to this exclusionary viewpoint than is immediately obvious.

Where things begin to get murky is the community-driven nature of these blogs and the concept of gaming culture. By creating an exclusionary atmosphere, by synthesizing these cliques and congregations, the video game industry subdivides its market base into genres. Ten years ago these genres were diverse and discrete, with little overlap: action, adventure, RPG, sports, etc. Within the past two generations, however, little by little developers have mashed genres together, in efforts to create games which appeal to larger and larger bases of players. Going back to the past, many action developers started including RPG elements into their games, because they saw the small pool of RPG players to be a desirable amount of players to add to their potential customers. Development was gearing towards making a game that could be projected to have XX number of purchasers, because it had elements from genres A, B, and C, where XX was some ratio of the estimated population of gamers who played A, B, and C-genre games.

The end result of a decade of mashups and genre-crossover games was a nebulously-defined "core" gamer. This is someone who, if the advertising is to be believed, spends most of their disposable income and free time playing the latest, most graphically-intense, most familiar-styled video games. They play many games per month, and so they prefer shorter games so they feel they can go and buy new games without neglecting the ones they have. Their games are impossibly-complex hybrid first-person role-playing driving games with strong simulated sexual content and true-to-life physics engines, as well as explosions every five minutes and guns coming out of other, larger guns. Story is irrelevant, or if it is the focus of the game, a half-hearted attempt at wrenching some emotional expression out of a hackneyed concept which is only as pretentious as the number of sequels the developer projected the not-yet-existent "franchise" could support. Graphics and gameplay mechanics differ only when and where the developer chooses to make a change to the pre-packaged, pre-developed, licensed middleware engine, so that they have something to put on the back of the case as a bullet point differentiating it from fifty other games slated to be released that week.

Now if it sounds like I'm being unfair, let's take a look at the (false) direct opposite to the "core" gamer, the "casual". Casual gamers are soccer moms, small children, or people who would be in the "core" gamer demographic were it not for the blatant lack of a Y chromosome. They play only a few games per year, usually web-based, due either to a lack of disposable income or time in which to play. The games invariably chosen by these players include mini-game collections where repetition of simple challenges, over time, earns social rewards within the game (such as badges or avatar clothing). When they are presented with console games, the controls are simplistic and obvious. Again, the games are derived almost without exception from pre-existing middleware engines, but more care seems to be placed into the art style for these games as that is usually the only place where the games actually differ. When a game becomes tiresome, "casual" players do move on to different games, but this process can seem glacial to the "core" players and often to the developers themselves; so, planned obsolescence or intentional flaws are introduced to force the "casual" player to upgrade to the next iteration once sufficient time has passed.

What you should notice about these two stereotypes is that both are, in essence, genres. In fact, I hypothesize that the "core/casual" divide has done absolutely nothing but create two cores. They are wildly disparate in the disposition of the games being offered for each demographic, creating a situation where they are perceived to be mutually exclusive: a game must be placed on one side or the other of the casual/core coin. There is no room on the edge. The advertising for these games, as well as the individuals espousing preference for these games, must be clearly identified.

This is a fantastically stupid tactic for the video game industry to take.

By narrowing gamers down from multiple genres and pigeonholing them into one of two "sects", the industry runs a very real risk of alienating those people who do not fit so neatly into the categories presented. Alienating these people causes them to rethink their game purchases more-- the more you burn someone, the more wary they become. As they become further disabused that the game industry is not paying attention to their preferences, they will stop buying games altogether, and the core market they were part of-- either the "traditional" or the "new player" market-- erodes away until, ultimately, there's no market left on either side of the divide.

A consumer who feels that he is not being serviced properly will take his or her money elsewhere. In any other industry, when a consumer feels the need for a change within the bounds of a product, the industry provides sufficient diversity, as well as an inclusive atmosphere, such that the consumer can feel reasonably confident that they can branch out.

Take, for example, books. Let's say that Alice reads a lot of murder mysteries-- the kind of Jessica Fletcher-type cozies which get pumped out en masse. After a while, she starts to realize the tropes within the genre, and they're not engaging her as much as she would have liked. One book in particular had some concepts she did like, though, and in seeking out other books that had that concept, she found herself looking at legal fiction-- courtroom dramas, John Grisham-type tomes. It might be a little daunting to get into at first, but she has a reasonable expectation that she can get into it. The genre remains accessible to her, even if she's not had any experience with it at all.

Let's contrast that with Becky, who's been playing games on the school computers during study hall. She's had a lot of fun with the usual fare such as Pogo, Neopets, Yahoo Games, and the like. She's seen advertisements on these services, however, for home console and portable versions of these games, and after getting them and going through them, she starts to look into other games she might like. Neopets in particular piqued her interest, and she's been hearing that Pokemon is kind of close to that, but with more stuff to do. The door, however, is shut to her; the Pokemon games all assume that the player has familiarity enough with the game before she even picks it up. She can't even buy the game, because she's stuck wondering whether she should get Diamond, Pearl, Ranger, Explorers of Time... Going into other genres is even worse-- heaven help her if she saw her friends playing Soul Calibur and wanted to get to know how to play that, or any fighting game!

What's changed over the past decade is that games developed for each core audience-- "traditional" versus "casual"-- are starting to assume that players are not coming in from the cold, but are familiar with the tropes and traditions of their core already. By creating this air of exclusivity in the games, moving from one core audience to the other becomes an insurmountable obstacle. You're expected to know, for example, that the Ice Beam kills Metroids, or that you have to play 50 rounds in order to earn the Peggle Proficiency badge (or whatever).

The community does nothing to ameliorate this matter. Players congregate in forums to discuss their preferred genres or systems. The amount of abject intolerance shown to newcomers to said areas no longer surprises me nearly as much as it disappoints me. Impatience with new players is the rule, rather than the supreme act of discourtesy it should be considered. A player looking for even the most basic of information about a genre unfamiliar to them will be met with a wave of irritation that they, with their independent ideas and preferences, do not automatically know the "correct" way to play the game. As an example, go to any forum dedicated to a fighting game and see what characters are considered the "top-tier". If you express any indication that you play as, or even admit to liking, any character not inside this tier, you are considered beneath contempt. Players never get the chance to learn, and therefore they will either go back to the genre that spawned their ennui, or simply abandon gaming altogether.

This is not an acceptable behavior pattern.

Let's go back to the social experiment I set up. The post I made consisted, in its primary text, solely of the phrase "The Wii". The idea I had in mind was that I did not need to express any opinion one way or the other about the Wii; I simply had to mention it in order to attract someone who would tell me I was wrong for liking it. As it turns out, my assumption was correct. Rob made a comment stating that it was "totally irrelevant... to most gamers". The implication, of course, was clear: "real gamers" don't have Wiis anymore. Someone who does have a Wii, or God forbid admits to enjoying games for it, is likely to not be considered a "real gamer".

I assure you that if I had tried this experiment on any major gaming community blog, the responses would range to the far more vitriolic; I would not need to resort to reading things into Rob's comment which he will undoubtedly deny he means. You can then substitute any topic whatsoever into the comment, and the result will be the same. Someone, somewhere, will compose a response saying that you are wrong in your opinion-- even if you don't express an opinion one way or the other! Just mentioning the topic of the required hatred, not even in a negative light, is license enough to go on the warpath.

This trend towards antisocial hostility and intentional, exclusionist elitism will destroy the very notion of a video game market. It is already doing so.

What seems to be the most overlooked part of the current trend, is the amazing response that re-releasing older games is getting. A "rehash" will often pull in numbers rivalling a new game release, depending on the game. The more cynical among the community will claim that the sales are due solely to nostalgia. I don't think that's nearly cynical enough, in point of fact. I think that, if you want to assume the worst in humanity, then the reason a game that's been out for over ten years outsells the latest and greatest five-hour full-price game is because the players see something in that older game that no longer exists in the new one. The new one tries to appeal to everyone in the homogeneous, uniform, 'universal' core, while the old one did its own thing and stood out enough to warrant the rerelease. It might not appeal to everyone in the core, but it's not trying to. It's not declared as the "definitive core game", it's not necessarily part of the "core syllabus required playing". It is what it is, take it or leave it. When you try to please everyone, you wind up pleasing no one.

Look at high-profile games such as Resistance 2, Gears of War 2, etc. These games are being declared, prior to their release, as "core" games without qualification. Players who identify, or are identified (even against their will), as "core", were expected by both the developers and their fellow gamers to buy the game in droves simply because "it's a core title amongst the casual cancer that is killing gaming". Obviously, this was flawed because some people within the "core" audience simply don't like first-person shooters. But no, it's a "core" game, you're a "core" gamer, if you don't like it, then you're not a "core" gamer. On the flip side, Puzzle Quest is a "casual" game, and if you play it even once, you're indelibly stamped as a "casual" gamer. (For some inexplicable reason, "casual" has higher priority than "core". Once labeled "casual", a gamer can apparently never be rid of the designation.)

This, at its core (no pun intended), is social Objectivism. A is A. Core is Core. Casual is Casual. There is no gray area, no middle ground, no compromise; to even suggest as much is anathema. Heresy. Forbidden.

Bullshit.

I'm making a declaration right now. I don't expect anyone else to follow me on this, but this is what I believe. This is what I'm going to say from now on. I recognize that there are now two core audiences for video games: the traditional market and the new-player market. These markets have their strengths and their weaknesses. However, I expressly reject the notion that I must fall on one side or the other of the traditional/new-player coin; I choose instead to ride the edge. I reject the labels that marketers and my fellow gamers would choose to place on me, even the label of "gamer"; instead I will define myself by playing what I want to play without regards for outside appearances. I reject the concept that gaming is a necessarily exclusive hobby, and that those who come to it with no foreknowledge are unworthy to participate; I choose instead to learn what I can, to share with those who ask me, and to welcome newcomers to the hobby which has brought me such fun. Finally, I reject the idea that anyone can tell me what I should or should not play; instead I will play what appeals to me, and ignore what does not without passing judgment on the people who play the games I choose not to play.

I would love to be optimistic enough for people to join with me on this, but I realize that the exclusionist nature of video gaming is far too entrenched to ever change now. For the longest time, I have comported myself to serve as an example of how a gamer should be perceived-- I have tried to be accepting, calm, a peacemaker, and to correct those who would disparage others based on their preferences. It has become clear to me that I have failed, and that my efforts are in vain. There can be no change, because the problem is not seen to exist. The "core"/"casual" divide is so deeply indoctrinated into gamers today that it is seen as how things are done. Nobody sees that it is so nihilistic, so self-destructive.

Because of this, I'm at an impasse as to whether or not I want to identify as a gamer anymore. If I have to qualify that with "Oh, but I'm not the rabidly psycho type who'll berate you for liking something I might have found a slight tiny flaw with", then it's not worth calling myself a gamer. It's not the games I'm becoming disenchanted with. It's (some of) the people who play the games. I don't want to be a loner gamer. I just wish that people would pull their heads out of their asses and realize that other people playing games is not a bad thing.

Game Completion Update: November

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:32:56 GMT

Food coma over, folks! It's December now, and that means that we've got a game completion report coming in. So, then, November's games are:

Halo 3, 360, November 13th: It's strange to think that this, being one of the biggest games of 2007, was a game I was reluctant to play for so long. I have a tendency to avoid that which dominates the attention of the world at large simply because I know how disappointing it can wind up being when the Next Big Thing turns out to be neither Big or a Thing. That said, Halo 3 does not live up to the hype that had preceded it in 2007. It does, however, hold up as a good example of how to do a first-person shooter and is a solid game in its own right... it's just not a great game. Many of the issues I had with the first two games are very evident in the third; there's so few bullets for the human weapons, forcing players to use the less-effective and less-interesting Covenant gear. Some of the things I liked got changed as well; Master Chief can only carry two of each grenade type now, and having four types to choose from does not make up for the limitation, particularly when the two new grenades aren't all that useful. Not being forced to play as the Arbiter works well story-wise, but it does make the game a bit monotonous. And the new support items feature is all but useless on the lower difficulty levels; enemies walk right into shield bubbles and walk around deployable cover. I can only shudder to think how tough the game is on Hard or Legendary. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was (and getting the Legendary set for 25% of its initial asking price back in June was a nice bonus), and I have to admit that it earned its A-. Now, about this ODST expansion...
LittleBigPlanet, PS3, November 22nd: The phrase "killer app" gets thrown around quite often. Halo was considered one; Wii Sports undoubtedly is one; and for the Playstation line, Final Fantasy has traditionally filled that role. But FF13 is still a couple of years off, and FF12 launched on the PS2 weeks before the 3 emerged. It's hard to say what Sony has pinned their hopes on these past two years-- MGS4 was the last big name, but I see tons of those sitting on the used shelves these days, even if I enjoyed it. Given this, LittleBigPlanet's core tenets of level creation and sharing were lauded as what would make the machine worth it. In a nutshell: no. Level creation, even with other people, is hard and boring. The game itself turned out to be a pretty basic physics-heavy platformer, and while I still couldn't get the multiplayer to work right, I can only imagine that playing with other people is fun. The game is fun, yes, but unfortunately it's painfully generic. Sackboy is cute and all but it's hard to make a blank canvas identifiable with a brand, which is what a killer app accomplishes for its system. A better analogy is that the game, as delivered to the player, is plain vanilla ice cream with forty zillion different kinds of sprinkles on the side. The player can arrange the ice cream and sprinkles as they see fit, but at the end of the day it's still just vanilla. It's hard for me to give the game the B- it deserves, but there's no other way to put it. While I like vanilla ice cream, I expect my games to have a bit more flavor to them.

December's already spoken for; I'm going to try to get through Chrono Trigger DS, and later in the month start up one of the major 360 RPGs on my plate-- either Tales of Vesperia or Infinite Undiscovery.

Delays have savaged what I was looking forward to in December; DJ Max Fever got pushed forward "indefinitely". More than that, some of the titles I looked forward to in November got lukewarm receptions-- Mirror's Edge in particular wound up being somewhat short, so it's more a rental now. Only Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories looks good for December, and that's a delayable purchase until after the holidays anyway.

Let's take a look at the current numbers:
Overall List: 32 completed of 51, 62.7% (UP 3.9%, was 58.8%, Goal 40%) with 19 remaining.
Prioritized List: 32 completed of 42, 76.2% (UP 3.0%, was 73.2%, Goal 50%) with 10 remaining.
2008 Goal: 32 completed of 25, 128% (UP 8%, was 120%, Goal 100%) with 0 remaining (Perfect Clear Accomplished).

As a personal challenge, I'm making an effort to clear three more games in December, to bring my year-end total to 35 or more. (Chrono Trigger doesn't count.) If I accomplish this, I'll permanently remove all but a select few retro games from the 2009 Backlog list (mostly GBA and PS1 games).

Finally... Last month I said I wanted to give more of an idea of what I wanted to do with the LJ. The bottom line, really, is that I don't know. I've really stopped doing a lot of game-based thoughts, and eleven months later, the whole "division of content" thing has turned out to flop hard. I figure that, to do daily updates, I have to make them as easy as possible to do... which I am going to try to do, of course, but that means this journal might wind up being a "sometimes" thing. I might start locking entries a bit more often, to give me a bit more freedom with what I say (because I don't much care for blasting out personal stuff unprotected) but the gaming and anime focus here might get diluted a bit. Really I went about this the completely wrong way; this should have been the personal news site, and the main page should have been where I did my geekery. Ah well.

There's no anime report this month, folks, because I didn't watch any. I saw just enough Bleach to realize that it had to go; it's just not my cup of tea right now, and the manga is starting to look like it's going to drag on forever without any progression or point. In any event, I should be back here before or around Christmas. Ciao until then, folks.

Anime Watching Report: October

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:02:27 GMT

Hey, so, we've got a bit more anime to cover this past month. No fancy pants intro this time, let's just get to what was seen in October:

Cromartie High School, complete: While it's a 26-episode series, the episodes run just under 13 minutes each, counting openings and closings; excluding those, there's really only nine minutes of content an episode, so the whole thing is done in just about four hours. Which is good, because its humor either falls flat right away or stalls out if it were to be prolonged. Imagine if Mike Judge (creator of Beavis and Butt-Head among other shows not relevant to this example) were shown Azumanga Daioh and told to make an analogue. Centering around a cast consisting of the most defective delinquents across three or four high schools in Tokyo, it's aimless, brainless, and pointless-- which is why when it does manage to stumble upon some humor, primarily in the dub actors' brilliant delivery of the blessedly loosely-translated dialogue, it strikes gold. As long as you go in not expecting anything close to a coherent plot across the whole thing-- it's really more of a collection of running gags-- you'll be entertained at the very least. It also has the dubious distinction of having a bizarre final episode that starts out by reimagining the series as a girls' high school comedy... but with one very important twist that I refuse to spoil here, because to say it I'd have to remember it, and I don't want to claw my eyes out and put them back in yet again. (Your only hint: Fan Disservice.)
Kanon, complete: It's one of those funny things, you know? Two years ago, I was moving into my current apartment here in Pittsburgh, and I was finding myself trying hard to get set up with an internet connection so that I could continue with watching Kanon. While I wouldn't get a chance to finish watching it through to the end until the following March, there's still something quite comforting about the series that I really enjoy. Anyway, I'd had some apprehension about the English acting, particularly Ayu, but the cast seems to have handled themselves well. Nayuki in particular sounds radically different in tone from the Japanese, but the intent is still there, which I think is just as important-- Jessica Boone wasn't trying to match the timbre of Mariko Kouda's voice, but Nayuki still sounds like the typical, ordinary high school student she's supposed to be. And, despite my initial reaction, Chris Patton eventually warmed up as Yuuichi. Sayuri's voice actress, Natalie Arneson, definitely has the dramatic chops to handle the role, but her voice work was a little rough, particularly with her vowels. Sayuri isn't supposed to sound like she comes from Minnesota or Ohio-- not that either of those states are bad in and of themselves, it's just that their highly distinctive accents don't lend themselves to a well-mannered heiress character (though if anything, now that I think about it, it just makes me like Sayuri even more). One of the Japanese language-specific gags got cut completely from the dub; the gigantic lampshade hanging done on Ayu's use of "boku" rather than "watashi". The dub replaces it with Yuuichi needling her about the vague 'being a freak', one of the dimmer spots in an otherwise fantastic script adaptation. Bah, enough dub wankery. This was a good run at one of my favorite series, and I'm glad that ADV's got options on Clannad as well.

Don't let this bind me or anything, given that I'm going to be writing a crapload here in the next month to month and a half, but I think I'm going to take a stab at Bleach set 1 next. At the very least it will give me a much-needed injection of raw mantosterone before I go back into the weepies with Air and Moon Phase. And yes. Bleach creates words for sheer hot-bloodedness, like "mantosterone" and "testicutude". It is that damn shonen.

As for purchases this month, I might get around to picking up the first box for School Rumble Season 2, but I'm trying to reduce my purchases for the time being, for a very good reason.

Finally... I tallied up the amount of unwatched anime I have on my shelf. The running time for everything that I have planned to watch, counting a couple of re-watches, is just under a week. That's a week straight, as in just shy of 168 hours, doing absolutely nothing else. Granted, if I drop a couple of long-form rewatches off, I save maybe a day or so, but that's still a hell of a lot of anime to watch through. I've been trying to pare that down bit by bit, watching a disc a night here and there, skipping openings and closings; but the fact is that, up until recently, I was getting new series faster than I could watch them. I set up a schedule for the start of the year, assuming that I would spend weekends watching series all the way through, and that still carried me through March. Ordinarily, the answer would be simply to stop buying anime. The problem lies in that the second-hand market for games is a bit stronger than for anime, and games tend to be readily available for far longer than anime and manga do. Anime literally can be a blink-and-you-miss-it scene, too-- how many times have I said, "I'll get it when the box comes out" only to find that the box might not be coming (I lucked out, seriously, with Fate and Shana in that regard)? Given that the anime market is a bit more volatile, I'll probably be stopping game purchases come the first of the year and reducing anime purchases to a minimum until and unless I clear out the backlog a bit more.

Catch you all later.

October Gaming Report

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:46:59 GMT

Well, here we are. Did you guys have a good month? I sure did-- got through a game or two that's been sitting on my shelf for too long. So, let's take a look at what was finished in October:

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii, October 19th: This being the game I picked for this month's challenge, I was surprised at how quickly I went through it. More than that, I was also surprised at how relatively easy it was. In terms of combat, I had almost no trouble at all-- even the Darknuts, foes I was expecting to put up the fiercest fights, fell with remarkable ease as time went on. Obviously I didn't go in for 100% completion, which would have taken me much longer than the month alotted. Overall this didn't do too much to change my opinion of the 3-D installments of the Zelda series; I'm still more partial to the classic top-down games, and will probably go ahead with plans to run through the Oracle set at some point next year. Still, it was quite a bit of fun in its own right (even if, perhaps, the Wii controls didn't add much over what I figured the GC setup would offer), so I'll call it a solid B+, and chalk up my low score to mere personal difference.
R-Type Final, PS2, October 24th: I'm probably committing a grave sin by admitting that this was my first R-Type game ever. Still, I have to admit that as a different take on the side-scrolling shooter, R-Type has a lot going for it. The Force unit is an interesting concept to work with, and while the different ships were a bit overwhelming to choose from, by and large it was a good game. The biggest complaint that I have is the rampant, all-pervasive slowdown, particularly in Area 6.0, just before the boss. It didn't help that I expected it to run a bit smoother, though to be honest I think maybe the shooters on the good ol' 360 spoiled me. Overall, though, it's a balanced game that earns its B- with style.

Like last month, November is Special, being National Novel Writing Month. As such expect my gaming time to go down to whatever comes right before zero. Granted, if I'm somehow done early, or if I'm just burned out on writing for the weekend, I'll likely play something-- probably Disgaea, as it's a long enough haul by itself.

There's really only a handful of games coming out in November worth mentioning:
DJ Max FEVER, PSP, November 11th. Pending reviews, unlikely at this time.
Mirror's Edge, PS3/360, November 11th. Pending reviews, unlikely at this time.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Wii, November 11th. Pending reviews, may be a delayed purchase.
Luminous Arc 2: Will, DS, November 18th. Pre-order secured.
The Last Remnant, 360, November 20th. Pending reviews, unlikely at this time.
Chrono Trigger, DS, November 24th. May be a delayed purchase.

Let's take a look at the current numbers:
Overall List: 30 completed of 51, 58.8% (UP 6.0%, was 52.8%, Goal 40%) with 21 remaining.
Prioritized List: 30 completed of 41, 73.2% (UP 4.9%, was 68.3%, Goal 50%) with 11 remaining.
2008 Goal: 30 completed of 25, 120% (UP 8%, was 112%, Goal 100%) with 0 remaining (Perfect Clear Accomplished).

Finally... I took another look at the 2009 Backlog, since last month, and (though I discussed this in brief on the main site) came to what I think might be the best way to handle things. See, I ranked a game's priority on the list pretty arbitrarily. There was little to no rhyme or reason as to which games would be considered "high" priority or "low". Because of the caprice with which I assigned my list, I wound up not paying the slightest bit of attention to it. I wanted to play games that were more recent, but which had been somehow assigned to the slow lane. It was, to say the least, frustrating. Anyway, the new rule is that games on systems older than the current generation (with the exception of the PS2) are automatically relegated to the slow lane, and that I'm going to make a greater effort to follow the guidelines of that priority system. I also changed the other column in my list from "quick clear" to a more sensible at-a-glance look to see what games were on portables and what were not. Hopefully, I'll be able to take greater charge of what I'll be playing.

Wednesday, we'll take a look at the anime I watched over the past month. At some point I'll try to detail what's going to happen with this here LJ... probably by December. Sorry for staying quiet so long.

Anime Watching Report: September

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:31:49 GMT

...yeah. Nothing. Sorry.

I did take a second look at Shakugan no Shana, and in all honesty I think I was just in a bad mood when I first watched it. Shana's still bitchy, but that's because she's still planted firmly on the tsun end of tsundere. At the very least, it's playing out in a different manner than the novels-- which is good, because this looks to be far more interesting. Also, Rosario + Vampire is turning out to be an interesting manga, but I don't have enough time to go over it right now. Long story. Anyway, I'll try to have a stronger writeup next month.

Game Completion Update: September

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:15:44 GMT

So this month wound up being dominated by one game and one game alone. Fortunately, I managed to get through it and a couple others, so here's what moved to the completed column in September:

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, DS, September 15th: So it took me a while-- almost twice as long as it took me to get through the original Tactics Advance, in terms of days spent. Believe me, this was worth it. While the game was just as aimless in its presentation of the story and characters, the writing was far tighter and more interesting than the original, and the concept of Luso's quest was fascinating. If anything I found myself liking Luso far more than Marche or even Vaan. In terms of the gameplay, the revamped Judge/Law system made the game even stronger than before, especially since laws are tied to missions and not fluid/manipulable as they were in the past. Then again, some jobs were useless (I found almost no use for Paladins or Animists), and the ones that were game-breakers (Fusilier, Ranger) wound up having their effectiveness neutered for the last handful of story missions. Overall, though, probably the best tactical game I've played in a long time, and an easy B+; it would have scored higher if there were fewer ludicrous elements like the Bazaar, or if certain bits of loot were a bit more abundant.
Gradius, PSP, September 16th: Don't laugh. This might be an accomplishment I hold in greater regard than finishing A2. See, Gradius is one of those games, if you're not aware, where if you die even once after getting your set of powerups collected, you might as well just walk away from it. Outside of the first stage, you are not gonna get those powerups back, and you sure as hell aren't going to be able to survive the middle of the stage you're in without at least half of what you had. Oh, and you become slower than slop. Ordinarily this is a game which causes the violent removal of hair from its players, but I managed to get through it. That, if anything, makes me feel a little bit better about the supposed slump or lack of skills I've been under the impression of suffering. As for the game itself, as part of the Gradius Collection disc for the PSP, it gets a C+: it's a perfect port of the arcade classic but it also really, really could have used a continue option.
Space Invaders Extreme, DS, September 27th: You would not think that a game like Space Invaders could be "cleared", but then again this is EXTREME. EXTREME games threaten to shoot small puppies if you're not H4RDK0RR enough to get through them. All kidding about the name aside, this was a very engaging game; it took the time-honored 'vaders and brought them into the 21st century of gaming, much like how Galaga Legions and Pac-Man Championship Edition did for their respective games. Oh, and it also added infuriating bosses. Bring it on. Anyway, for the $20, it's a good use of the money and it makes sure that you get what you pay for. WFC multiplayer doesn't hurt it either, even if I'm not big on the whole "social" thing. I'll call this an even B because the difficulty, while high, is the reason to get it. Oh, and because you'd not nearly be XTR3M# enough without it.

Those of you exclusively on the LJ side are largely unaware of this, but every October I organize a little "game rush" thing based on a theme. Last year it was with Pokemon games and was, appropriately enough, entitled "Poketoberfest". This year, however, we have a few more participants-- but since we're predominantly in a Zelda mood, the month has been dubbed "Octorok". You can check out the loosely-defined rules on the TFO.net forums (the thread is here), but don't feel that you have to follow any strict dogma or anything. Just pick a game, start on October 1st, and try to get through it before Halloween.

It's not that October doesn't have games I want to play. Quite the contrary, Little Big Planet hits near the end of the month, literally the same week as Star Ocean PSP-- oh, and Sam and Max Season 1 for the Wii. But I've made a conscious decision that I'm not doing myself any favors by making the 2009 Backlog larger at a far faster rate than I'm completing them. I'll probably make a firm decision on it closer to the end of the year, but as of right now I don't think I have any new purchases planned until December at the very earliest (except Star Ocean, which is more a political purchase than anything).

Speaking of the Backlog, how about those numbers?
Overall List: 28 completed of 53, 52.8% (UP 5.6%, was 47.2%, Goal 40%) with 25 remaining.
Prioritized List: 28 completed of 41, 68.3% (UP 4.2%, was 64.1%, Goal 50%) with 13 remaining.
2008 Goal: 28 completed of 25, 112% (UP 12%, was 100%, Goal 100%) with 0 remaining (Perfect Clear Accomplished).
Quick Play Count: 7 uncompleted Quick Play games.

Finally... I hinted at this before the numbers, but the size of the Backlog is starting to worry me just a tad. At last count, I'll be starting 2009 with ~~close to~~ at minimum 70 games untouched or unfinished, and that fails to take into account that this last quarter most certainly has a few games I want to get, to say nothing of 2009's promises. Now, earlier on I had said that I wanted to try to have one portable and one home game going at once, which is a reasonable goal. The problem is that, because there's no navigation path via buses from my house to my place of work (currently) that does not include a mile walk up the steepest hill in Robinson Township, I don't actually get to use my portable machines as portable machines. If I had a bus ride each day, that could be two hours where I relax and work on that game, on my way home to the main game. Instead I'm unproductively stuck in traffic for two hours each day. My issue isn't so much the length of the trip or the gas used (though those are also very good reasons to take public transit), but the fact that the time is usually completely wasted. I really only justify it anymore by listening to podcasts in the morning, and calling my folks in the afternoon (something that, given the schedules involved these days, would probably be far more convenient if I did it once I was home). There is a solution to the problem, of course-- well, two solutions, but I really don't want to walk up that hill-- and by February (or sooner) it won't matter anyway, but it still wears on me somewhat.

On Wednesday, the Anime Report will strike, and ~~unless I've watched something since I wrote this,~~ it's going to be hella short. At least I have manga to talk about. Ciao.

The Rush To Judgment

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:28:32 GMT

Last night and this morning I took a little bit of time to watch the openings or play through the first few minutes of a handful of games that have yet to be put into any of my machines. Ten games, most of them PS2 titles, were played in order to make sure I wasn't putting off something really compelling in favor of Twilight Princess, and the verdict is... below. (Ha! Figured I was going to let the only other September LJ post be a shortcut, did you? I've had these words building up for a long time and they are coming out now whether you like it or not. Well, okay, so I hope you like it, but if not that ain't gonna stop me.) Lots of cuts for this entry, so be warned.

So, each one in no particular order:

Steambot Chronicles: Well, the first thing that struck me was that Spike Freaking Spencer voiced the main character. He also has the potential to be far snarkier than Shinji or Akito ever were, so I might just have to play Vanilla as a douchebag just to hear him say what I imagine he's been dying to say. The controls for the Trotmobiles (bipedal cars) are a little weird-- probably closer to, say, Armored Core or almost Katamari Damacy-- but they feel natural after a little while. I'm a bit more excited for this one now.
GrimGrimoire: NIS America distributed this, but the Vanillaware style is very much in play in the beyond gorgeous visuals. The voices are a little on the squeaky side, but that's to be expected given that it's basically "Loli Potter". I stopped before the game became playable but it looks to be a far more interesting tale than Odin Sphere struck me.
Grandia II: It's been damn near seven years since I last put this game in, and it looks about as well as it did on the Dreamcast (I'm playing the PS2 version). Obviously this leads into a remark that the graphics look dated, but 'dated' in this case doesn't necessarily mean 'bad'. The story is still appropriately angsty as was the style at the time, but I'm not sure if I'm in the mood to go through it just yet. It's lower on the list than I figured it would be.
La Pucelle Tactics: Holy freaking crap, I forgot just how funny this game was. It came before Disgaea in the whole 'order of development' thing, but its sense of humor is fairly universal. I imagine that after I finish Disgaea, this is the next NIS epic on the list; probably because it will be far shorter than the knock-down, drag-out fights from Hell that series is known for. Of course, I could be wrong.
Radiata Stories: I had to get a sense of this game again for two reasons: the first was that I was about ten hours in when my memory card decided to self-destruct back in Cleveland, and as a result I never felt like restarting it. The second was that it was a kind of a downer beginning (spoiler: Jack flunks the Knight exams, and nothing you do can change that) during Cleveland, where I was seriously depressed, so it had a couple irrational strikes against it. I'm starting to see the humor in it a bit more, but it's still going to be a while before I start it up for real.
Tales of Legendia: First things first, thank you very much for starting up with an action sequence! Seriously, after watching for the majority of the preceding 90 minutes or so, having some actual combat was a well-needed thrill. This being a somewhat earlier Tales title on the PS2, it still has the chibi field figures, but it also has animated cutscenes and some very attractive artwork. I stopped when the Cam Clarke timer went off (about fifteen minutes in-- seriously, it's like his voice is to Tales games as barrels and crates are to first-person shooters).
Tales of The Abyss: Hero named Luke, secluded in a boring environment, eager for adventure, prophecied to change the world. Why didn't they just call it "Tales of Star Wars As Drawn By Kosuke Fujishima"? Not saying that I'm not going to play it, because if there's one serious weakness I have it's Fujishima's artwork, but it's not getting off to too great of a start.
ICO: Yeah, I suppose I should admit right now that I was infuriated by Myst, and that ICO looks to be just the same. Though I did manage to get Yorda out of the cage and led her to the first Love Seat Of Make-Out And Also Saving, it might be a while before I start this one up again just because I kinda resent being thrown to the wolves like this. The manual was of almost no help, and way to not offer advice that might actually be helpful to the player.
Shadow of the Colossus: Okay, pretty. Really, really pretty. But remember what I said about being thrown to the wolves? Except in this case there's only one wolf, and he's several dozen stories tall and squished me like a goddamn grape. Oh, and why does Wander have scrawny arms? It was a horrible effort to cling onto the first one's ankle hairs long enough to stab ineffectually at the too well-hidden magical weak point. I'm playing to fight giant stone monsters, not the crappy controls.
Bioshock: I really got into this; every little sound made me jumpy, and I have to admit that the Little Sisters are going to give me nightmares for months-- particularly the one in the theater, jabbing that big-ass needle thingy into that guy's head. Compared to that, the Big Daddies are nothing. So why is it that right when I was going to get to Neptune's Bounty I got ambushed by, like, fifty splicers? At once? I'm probably going to play through this after I finish Half-Life 2, assuming I ever get back to playing through that all the way through.

So that's the list. The Game Completed report is coming tomorrow-- I probably ought to put it up today, but there's no real rush. Just a heads-up, the Anime report is going to be really short this month, too, as I spent the majority of my time gaming, but I'll have some remarks on a couple of new manga being read. Ciao, folks.

Not Dead, Just Grinding

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:19:13 GMT

Sorry for the profound silence here, folks, but I'm close to the end of FF Tactics A2 and I'm hoping I can get it wrapped up by the end of the weekend. I don't want to skip GASP if I can avoid it but we shall see.

Incidentally, if anyone's interested in learning these things, I was through the original FFTA in about 45 days, while A2 is at 66 days and counting. For my next trick, I'll probably do a four-year run through Disgaea.

Anime Watching Report: Otakon/August

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:28:12 GMT

While I didn't finish any series so far, I did encounter quite a few more series this month. Attending one of the largest anime conventions on the East Coast will do that for you. Let's dispense with the introductions and just get right to what I saw in August:

Slayers Revolution, Episode 1: Slipgate wanted to show us this, and was very eager to do so. With good reason, too-- Slayers Revolution is a true triumph of the series in every sense of the word. It's been quite a long time since I've seen any Slayers, and I've never made it through an entire season before owing to cost and time concerns, but watching this I felt like I knew the characters-- even Zelgadis, who (at the time I watched it) I was still not entirely sure is really an ally or not (I'm sure I'll get edumacated later on-- see below). It's a given that this is coming over, but it might be a while until I can get to it; I do, after all, have three seasons to watch through first.

Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Revolution, Episodes 1-3: There were some reservations about this from certain parties, but it came highly recommended by Kat and Andrew. It's a CLAMP series in visuals only, as Lelouch and his party were merely designed by the Angels of Art; the story is all Sunrise. And the story is, summarily, "What if Light Yagami was a Gundam pilot?". It got really interesting as Lelouch got the hang of the whole command thing (but the introduction of the 'normals' of the student council was a little forced) so it's on the list once more of it comes out. That episode-- the student council bit-- changed the mood somewhat, steering it ever so slightly into Mai-HiME territory (which isn't bad in and of itself).

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Episode 1: And then we have the next serving of nonsense from Gainax. I can see what the collective internets like about the show-- for starters, Kamina is so over the top that he wraps around and goes over the top again-- which is probably why I'm thinking it's a severe victim of Hype Poisoning. It's by no means bad. It's just... yeah, when you have Yoko in her flame bikini top, and then the business with all the drills, tell me it's not going to be a twenty-six episode long-form Freud-inspired dick joke. Go on, I dare you. If you're wondering where I got the impression that the series is going to go in that direction, need I remind you: It's Gainax. That's what they do. I'll wait for the season box. ...to go on clearance.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Episodes 1-4: Eric, I am so very sorry. I dragged my feet on this, even after seeing the first episode and a half. I should not have. In retrospect if you had simply told me that the second-most adorable character in all of anime was in it-- Komori-- I would have been all over it. My shame is abundant. Not just abundant, but pressing. This is probably going to be my top series to complete in the coming weeks. I only wish that an English release was forthcoming-- this is definitely one of the better series out there these days, but it relies almost too heavily on Japanese culture.

The Slayers, Episodes 1-10: So, as I'd said, I never quite managed to watch all of Slayers all the way through. It was only natural that I give it a shot, especially after Slip's rekindling the desire. (A reasonably-priced boxed set doesn't hurt, either.) Over the course of a few days I went through what was described as the first arc of the season, the ten-episode Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo... thing. It's not really a battle so much as it is an introduction of Lina, Gourry, and Zelgadis; still, it works out pretty well, considering that it's meant to establish them as the main characters. Overall, though, their primary motivation-- food-- seems a little weak, unless there's something going on in Atlas City that hasn't yet been explored. The series shows its age a bit, mostly in its execution and some technical aspects-- but the core story is still holding up fairly well. Regardless, though, I'll be going through it in full sometime in September.

Ghost In The Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, Episodes 1-4: This was mostly a gift for Pez, but all things considered I he figured I ought to give it a look myself. I didn't much care for GITS to begin with, so the only real thing I was looking for was Yoko Kanno's music. I watched Episode 1 with Pez, who was also seeing that particular one for the first time; at the time, I managed to piece together a fairly interesting plot in between the massive amounts of squick, and this is to say nothing of the fact that I kept mistaking Batou for Ziggy. Fortunately, however, the rest of the episodes on the first disc toned down the gross, which meant it started to hold my interest more. Overall, it's got some interesting concepts to play around with, but I can't help but think that either I need a manual for the damn thing (as characters constantly reference 'that incident' or 'the thing from before' or somesuch continuity lockout) or that I ought to go watch the movie before I proceed with this... it's extremely dense, compared to my usual fare, so it's going to take me a while to get through it. On the plus side, the Tachikoma Days segments make for some well-needed comic relief after all the Serious Business.

Hey, I also decided to get into some more manga (at long last). I picked up the latest issues of a couple of manga anthologies, specifically Shojo Beat, Yen Plus, and (of course) Shonen Jump. (As an aside, I really don't much care for the fact that Shojo Beat prints its series in alternating pink and blue ink... it's a neat way to separate the series, but it gets really hard to read after a while.) There were a couple series in each which I really wanted to get a look at, and in no particular order, they are:

Higurashi - When They Cry, chapters 1-2: Talk about schizophrenic. This story doesn't know whether it's a harem tale or a gruesome mystery, yet it manages to be both. Set in the early 80s, it tells the tale of a series of murders surrounding a small village and the dam project threatening (or promising) to change the village entirely. A young man moves to the village shortly before the fourth murder occurs, and resolves to catch the killer in order ot protect the gaggle of young women who've apparently inducted him into their club of... card games? It's still to early to tell, but when a character being set up as a mysterious recurring pseudo-ally is in point of fact the next victim, things take a sharp turn from the whimsical to the downright creepy. The Wikipedia articles and other materials I've come across about it leads me to believe that this is just the tip of the very bloody, psychologically scarring (to characters and readers alike) iceberg. I'm interested, but the anime is tied up in licensing hell and I don't know if Yen is going to publish this in book form concurrent with the serialization-- probably not.

Vampire Knight, chapter 27: This is another series I've been thinking about for a while, and unfortunately I came into it smack in the middle. That works against it, so until a writing weekend when I can hang out at Borders for a few hours to get caught up, I'll set this one aside

Sumomomo, Momomo, chapter 2: HELL NO. I was certainly not expecting "Ai Yori Aoshi" meets "Dragon Ball Z". Nor am I particularly (read: even remotely) receptive to it.

One Fine Day, chapters 1-3: Gloriously cute. That's the short answer, but this slice-of-magical-life manhwa is just charming in spades, even if the otherwise-pretty art style makes it a little difficult to follow at times.

Maximum Ride, chapters 1-2: This caught me by surprise, as I'd not read the books prior to this, but it might be worth a look as time goes on. Since I'll be getting Yen for Higurashi and One Fine Day anyway, this is an added bonus... and to boot it's not half bad.

September doesn't have much in the way of new releases, but near the end I'll be picking up the Avatar Book 3 box set. Everything really ramps up near the end of the year anyway, so it's probably for the best that I take it easy for a bit.

Finally... After learning that the first episode is not entirely indicative of the rest of the series, I may need to give Lucky Star another look-- I dug out the fansub disc again and set it to convert to a mobile format. Oh, and you might wonder why I would look into Yen Press with any kind of real interest. As it turns out, they're the studio translating the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels, so I figured it would be a good idea to scout them out ahead of that project. Given what I've seen of the manga and manhwa in their periodical, I can say that things are looking up. I only hope the Scrapped Princess and Kino's Journey rights die off from Tokyopop soon, because I've waited long enough on those.

I'll try to post more here this month, but... well, it's a ways off. I'll keep you all updated as more decisions are made.

Game Completion Update: August

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:20:51 GMT

What a rush: four Clears this month takes me to my initial goal of 25. There's going to be more analysis here in a moment, but for starters, let's take a look at August's conquests:

Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner, WiiWare, August 12th: Episodic games are something new, really, but I'd set a precedent last time with the Penny Arcade game, so this one counts as a full-fledged Clear even though it took all of about three hours. I don't really feel like this one is 'cheating', though, because quite unlike the PA game this one was really, really enjoyable as a game and not just for the humor. Granted, I seem to be the only person left among my circle of friends who hasn't grown completely contemptuous of Homestar Runner, but then again, this is my game list, so... yeah. It was a fun little point-and-click adventure, and I'm looking forward to seeing Sam and Max on the Wii as well as the rest of the episodes for this season. The episode has a solid B+ right now, as it really needed to be longer or more difficult.

Fate/Tiger Colosseum, PSP, August 16th: I think that the best thing to say about Tiger Colosseum is that it's deceptively good. Most humor games based on popular anime or manga franchises tend towards the "crappy" end of the licensed-game quality spectrum, but Capcom managed to ensure that TC wound up being a highly-polished fighter. It plays out similarly to, say, Powerstone or a better version of Sonic Battle, but with the added bonus of being based on cute versions of the Fate cast. Yes, even Berserker is somewhat adorable. And any game that lets you beat the everliving crap out of Shinji Matou, repeatedly and earnestly, gets points in my book. And then there's the storylines... from what I can estimate, one of them has Rider's glasses growing malevolent and replicating themselves across the entire cast (yes, Eric, you get to see Saber and Caster as meganekko and they are even more awesome for it). Yeah. I counted it as complete after doing the bare-minimum, but since it's easily an A- game, I'll probably be going through it a couple more times.

flOw, PS3, August 20th: It's hard to say why I thought this game deserved to be counted; but then again, I've counted shorter or easier games on the list in the past, so I figure it can be forgiven. In any event, flOw is a short diversion; nothing more. It's got an interesting play mechanic in the whole "eat or be eaten" thing but ultimately it's too shallow to be considered anything but an interesting, mildly interactive screensaver. I actually was kind of hoping an auto-play mode would be enabled at some point, just so that it was no longer pointlessly consuming HD space, because it is very pretty in motion, but ah well. In any event, I'm left with no choice but to call this a C- because while it's not great as a game, it did hold my interest for long enough for me to finish its challenges.

Moeru! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, DS, August 24th: Ouendan! What a wonderful word. I have to admit that I know too little Japanese to get much more than music out of the game's tracklist, but I did enjoy the time I spent with it. The final two tracks were a much easier pair than "Without A Fight"/"Jumpin' Jack Flash" from EBA, but still challenging enough. It's weird, but I've noticed that I seem to do much better on music games in the mornings than I do late at night. In any event, Inis proved that they can tell some great stories as well; you get the gist of most of them even without understanding any of the dialogue. Oh, and seeing the Statue of Liberty fire a beam of... no, no, I won't spoil it. You'll just have to play this A- game for yourself.

I also decided to Abandon one game in August:
Band of Bugs, 360, Abandoned August 24th. BoB is one of those games where you can kind of see where the developers were going with it, but you can also painfully see where they went wrong. In their case, it was in simplifying the game's single-player campaign mode. You start each mission with a set, specific unit loadout and you cannot change it. There's no recruiting, no party management, no nothing-- it's just what you're given. While that ramps up the use of strategy and cunning greatly, it's also a huge departure from the conventions of the turn-based tactical genre that it serves as artificial difficulty at times. Plus, well, I just plain don't like the story. Or the music. Or the art style. In the end, it serves as a very strong reminder for me to play the demo for quite a while before dropping cash on a digitally-distributed title.

How about we take a look at the plans for September's gaming:

1. Final Fantasy Tactics A2, DS. I still retain my laconic pace through this game; I've only gone through (at this writing) eight of the twenty story missions. I did however decide that I wanted to try to get through it at some point before the October gaming rush begins, and I'm hoping that I might be able to get through the last little bits here at the beginning of this month. It's going to take some grinding, though.
2. Brave Story: New Traveler, PSP. This game is now firmly in my PSP-- no more slacking and no more delays. Either I'm going to finish this for September or for the inaccurately-named Poketoberfest; if I set it aside to play through a Pokemon game, that will be twice that Pikachu has stood between me and Vision, and that's twice more than this game deserves.
3. Bionic Commando: ReArmed, 360. The phrase "Nintendo Hard" is often thrown around, but usually it's just artificial difficulty. BC:RA is Nintendo Hard. And, despite my usual frustration with such games, I'm loving every second of it.
4. Half-Life 2, 360. I made it to the sewers and the large pool at the end of said sewers a few weeks ago, and I realized that while it's a great game, I'm either out of practice with the whole FPS thing or I've greatly underestimated the amount of time it will take me to finish this. Still, I'm willing to keep going with it. Maybe one day I'll get around to Episode 1 and/or 2. Pencil them in for 2013.
5. Culdcept Saga, 360. Still waiting to start this. If I have a clean enough slate for October, I might go ahead and do this for then, or at the very least start it up after finishing whatever I do settle on.

It's been a while since I could say this, but the planned purchases for Spetember are as follows:
Tales of Vesperia, 360, August 26. Delayed purchase, pending reviews.
Infinite Undiscovery, 360, September 1. Pending reviews.
Rock Band 2, 360, September 14. Disc only (fortunately).
Dragon Quest IV, DS, September 15.
Kirby Super Star Ultra, DS, September 22. May be a delayed purchase.
My Japanese Coach, DS, September 23. Pending reviews/usefulness.
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, DS, September 23. May be a delayed purchase.

And just in case you were hankering for a look at this month's progress numbers:
Overall List: 25 completed of 53, 47.2% (UP 7.6%, was 39.6%, Goal 40%) with 28 remaining.
Prioritized List: 25 completed of 39, 64.1% (UP 5.8%, was 58.3%, Goal 50%) with 14 remaining.
2008 Goal: 25 completed of 25, 100% (UP 16%, was 84%, Goal 100%) with 0 remaining (3 for Perfect Clear).
Quick Play Count: 7 uncompleted Quick Play games.

Allow me to explain the numbers a little. What's obvious is that just yesterday, I completed the 25th game this year, meeting my goal of 25 Game Clears in 2008 a full four months early. Of course, what's also obvious given that I've told you guys each and every game I've cleared this year, is that three of them were technically 'not supposed to count'. Rez HD and Parappa the Rapper should not have counted towards the list because I had completed them previously-- they were remakes this time around, with no substantially new content standing between myself and the goal. flOw, on the other hand, was far too easy; I literally sprinted for the 'next level' food for the last half of that game. So, in order to make things more or less fair, I'm pushing myself just a little bit harder now. I'm not going to consider the game resolution completed until I have 28 Clears this year-- three more, one to make up for each 'cheat'. As a little bit of a relaxation, I'm going to be a little more likely to Abandon a game I'm just not feeling terribly into.

Still, for me, twenty-five games in one year isn't just impressive, it's unprecedented. Not even when I was at my most prolific did I manage to rip through as many games as I have so far. Some interesting things to note: Of the games cleared so far, only 10 were purchased prior to January 1st. Which, when you think about it, kind of defeats the purpose of the Backlog List, but then again, I have every intention of going through those games. That sort of leads me to my next point: only three of those were long, console-style RPGs (Eternal Sonata, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, and The World Ends With You); four if you also count Super Robot Taisen. SRT was not, in fact, the 'oldest' game cleared... VP:L was: I had purchased a PSP and that disc with the money I got from the SRT site, while still in Cleveland, and received the SRT games a few weeks after moving to Pittsburgh. As it turns out, since I restarted it, SRT isn't even the game that's been in play the longest: that honor goes to Kirby's Adventure, which I picked up on its VC release day in February of 2007 (I restarted SRT that April); it's not even in second place, because I got Alien Hominid HD later in February!

In terms of games per system:
Xbox 360 (includes XBLA): 7 games. (Senko no Ronde, Eternal Sonata, Rez HD, Triggerheart Exelica, Alien Hominid HD, Penny Arcade Ep 1, Ikaruga)
Wii (includes WiiWare): 6 games. (Smash Bros. Brawl, Pokemon Battle Revolution, No More Heroes, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, Strong Bad Ep 1)
DS: 5 games. (Touch Detective 2 1/2, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wriht: JFA, The World Ends w/You, Ouendan 2)
PSP: 3 games. (Parappa, Valkyrie Profile, Fate/Tiger Coloss.)
PS3 (includes PSN): 2 games. (Metal Gear Solid 4, flOw)
GBA: 1 game. (Super Robot Taisen)
NES: 1 game. (Kirby's Adventure)

I'm a bit surprised at how many Wii games are on the list, though I suppose I shouldn't be. It's also slightly surprising how many very good games are on the 360.

Now, let's detail very quickly how the Backlog List is going to work in 2009. I'm looking at my gaming shelves across the room right now and starting to realize that the sheer numbers presented to me are working against me. It's not so much that I don't have anything to play, it's rather that I'm so paralyzed once I do complete a game that I let inertia set in and I wind up not playing anything for quite a while. Setting things as "priority" and "not priority" works on paper, but the problem is that there're still 28 games staring back at me that I feel compelled not to ignore. So, I'm going to put some games away in the closed-shelves area. These games are considered "in the vault". They still count against me for the games to complete that year, but they're not staring out at me and giving me too many options. Each month, I'll pull a certain (arbitrary non-zero) number of games that haven't been touched into the vault, and put an equal number of games 'out'. Each time a game is completed or abandoned, a vault game takes its place. There will be a maximum of ten non-active games on the shelf at any one time, across ALL systems. (Some games have permanent places on the shelf, specifically Rock Band, DDR, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, etc.; these don't count for or against me.) I'm going to set this in motion starting now, so as to work out any kinks before 2009.

Finally... I would like to just toss off a little word of thanks to those people who are reading this and encouraging me to do this silly little endeavor. Ultimately it's a personal goal, and one which I'm probably overcomplicating greatly, but then again I over-plan anyway. I genuinely love planning and over-planning, and for me, these lists and numbers are almost as much fun as actually playing the games themselves. I've noticed that the numbers, on a long enough scale, remain more or less consistent. This basically means that I will never have "all my games completed". Most people would expect that to horrify me, but in reality it's quite comforting to know that there's always another challenge, another game, another system to learn and another story to enjoy. I did have a period where I had no games to complete, where I had sold off all but the most personally valuable titles in my collection, and it drove me crazy. I don't foresee myself being in that position again for a very, very long time to come.

I'd originally said that the Anime Report on Wednesday was going to be more interesting, but, well, I suppose it's kind of a wash now. See you then.

i has a con report

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:49:50 GMT

Sorry for the childish title, but that really about sums it up. The Otakon 2008 Report is complete and live on the main site, so enjoy.

I'm currently struggling through an overabundance of entertainment options-- leading to slacker's paralysis as I lose the ability to decide on what to do next-- but I think I'm going to put in SZS tonight and watch through some more of that before bed. Sounds fun.

Cutting The Braid

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:40:35 GMT

The festivities for Otakon begin tomorrow, with my flight leaving somewhere in the noonish area. Yes, flight. I don't normally care for flying, but it's a fair shade cheaper than driving, and far less stressful. There will be much watching of anime and playing of games, of that you may be assured. The anime report might be the one getting the most love this month, seeing how as the majority of the games I'll be playing this month are ones which can't be completed or are too far away from being completed. If I dedicate myself to it, I could probably wrap up FFTA2, but don't count on it-- I've only put about seven or eight hours into it, and I've already claimed the remainder of August as noveling time.

One thing I am going to say is that I tried the demo of Braid (Xbox Live Arcade). Holy crap is it garbage. Now, certainly don't misunderstand me. The game itself is not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination; it's well-developed and there's no point at which you say, "This can't be done because of (technical problem x)". Mechanically, the game is solid. Aesthetically, it's gorgeous-- the animation is fluid and smooth, the artwork is glorious, and the sound is pleasant. Fundamentally, it will drive you up a wall with fury. I normally try to give developers the benefit of the doubt when they're trying to do "games as art" but this is just too god damned pretentious for me to stomach for a single second, and because of this I'm severely afraid it's going to taint whatever enthusiasm I have left for Eternity's Child (after seeing it get blasted to hell and back for gameplay issues). Maybe I'm just not getting the story-- in this case, maybe it's because the game does everything in its power to prevent me from understanding the story. There's Tim and there's a princess, and she apparently beat him with her hair. Whales Take Flight?!

Braid doesn't even bring anything interesting to the table in terms of its gameplay mechanics-- Blinx and Price of Persia did the "rewind time" thing first, and Chronotron does it far, far better. I will admit that the puzzles seem interesting at first glance, and that understanding a couple of things that aren't explained to you at all god dammit help the player to understand how to solve them. But at times it feels like the developer listened through the entire commentary for Portal, took studious notes on exactly how Valve coaxed the player along and made learning the game mechanics transparent and fun... and then said, "Well, they're retarded, I'm going to do the exact opposite!". Braid isn't hard. It is instead monolithic, unforgiving, and completely unfair.

I read some of the interviews with the developer. When he didn't make himself sound completely self-righteous and pompous, he raised the point that a game should not lead players along with hollow, meaningless rewards. He specifically mentioned gold coins or their equivalents in many games. The coins, he said, were empty rewards for little to no effort-- you simply pick them up and move on. I have no idea what he was smoking to come to the conclusion that being instant gratification was the only purpose that a well-placed gold coin could serve. Take a game like N. In that game, the only collectible objects-- in fact, the entire point of the game-- are gold. The gold serves no purpose other than being there to collect; you can exit the level without collecting all of the gold if you choose. However, going after the gold often puts you at considerable risk, particularly when the gold appears to be an easy target. The gold in this case serves as a learning tool-- you have to figure out how to get the gold without being killed, and the placement of the gold is usually a clue to help you figure out just what fancy trick the developer wants you to pull off. It's the bait that the level designer puts in in order to reinforce a concept that will come up later in the game, as well as the subtle hint giving you the insight you need to learn said concept.

I have to admit that when I read the interview with the developer of Braid, I started thinking, "Well, let's see how the whole no-cheap-thrills thing works out." Then, during the demo, I came across a level where I had to kill six enemies to get a puzzle piece of dubious value, with two of them being across a nearly impassable gap, and I realized the developer of Braid is full of something unpleasant that rhymes with "fit". Only now, an hour after I've deleted the demo, have I come up with a concept that might be close to what he's thinking of, but probably isn't-- the only other time during the demo that I 'caught on', it took me twenty trial-and-error attempts after which I basically started cursing at the screen with extreme volume.

I played I Wanna Be The Guy once already, and it infuriated me. I don't need some pretentious overblown craptacularly bad emo fanfiction screed shoved in my face every five minutes while trying to get through the developer's homage to Mystery Quest. That's about the most polite way I can sum up my thoughts on Braid. Oh, and it's overpriced. If you like it, more power to you, and I certainly won't begrudge you your enjoyment of it... just don't talk to me about it unless you want me to give you the less-polite and more profanity-laden Extended Mix of my opinion.

Anime Watching Report: July

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:57:50 GMT

I did a lot of re-watching over this past month-- a bit premature, given the amount of new material I have yet to see, but when you have guests, it's not always a good idea to show them an unproven property. (Yes, Pez, believe it or not I did learn from the Galaxy Fraulein Yuna disaster.) So how about we go over what got gone over in July:

Fruits Basket, Disc 1 (Rewatch): So yeah, Rick wanted to see this. At least Disc 1 was the happy-go-lucky disc, with lots of slapstick and not so much of the tearjerking. As confident as I am with my masculinity, having him see me cry like a little baby would not have set a great tone for the remainder of the week. I'll probably have to watch through the rest later on.
Martian Successor Nadesico, complete (Rewatch): After Fruits Basket, however, the order was given for something silly or more light-hearted. I have to admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude in taunting Rick to try to piece together the big reveal a full ten episodes before it happened, but really if you think about it, you do in fact have all the pieces to the puzzle that early on. This still has to be one of my favorite series.
Martian Successor Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness (Rewatch) And then there's the movie. I understand a lot of the crap that the film gets, but when you get right down to it, it wasn't nearly as bad as many people make it out to be. It just frontloads too much of the drama, and derails too many characters too far for some folks' liking. Fortunately for me, my favorite cast members didn't get monkeyed with too much.
School Rumble, Discs 3-End plus Extra Class: I decided to finally just sit down and marathon this one to its end. Ordinarily, I would say that it's best in shorter doses, but I suppose the more accurate thing to say would be that it's best in a group. Near the end it started introducing too many new characters too quickly, when it wasn't deliberately confusing the snot out of the viewer. Oh, and the athletic competition dragged on for about an episode too long-- Excel Saga could get away with a sudden injection of plot, but School Rumble isn't quite up to it. When the comedy works, it's hilarious... but it's a bit too hit or miss to be a solid recommendation. I'd suggest that folks interested in it just try the first disc before taking the plunge on the whole set, and skipping the Extra Class disc.

You know what? I'm going to just dispense with the Watch List for the Anime Reports. I never hold myself to them, and I'd much rather be more free-form in my viewing. Still, I'm feeling Gundam SeeD a bit more, and maybe some Moon Phase or .hack//SIGN.

As for the purchase list... well, August brings me to Otakon, and you can bet I'm going to make an effort to pick up some of the more elusive boxed sets. ADV's stuff should be getting into the lower price ranges now, and Geneon's stuff is at that sweet spot between "we have to get rid of it" and "you'll never find it now"; overall, though, I really ought to consider taking another risk. Last year it was Bottle Fairy, and the "time" before it was Risky Safety. I'm wondering what exactly I could take a jump at-- maybe Rozen Maiden, or perhaps an attempt at tracking down El-Hazard finally? We shall, as always, see. Oh yeah, apparently Kanon Vol. 6 has been delayed to October. RAGE.

Finally... really, that's about everything. Nothing particularly special going on-- summer doesn't see me watching too much TV, in favor of more interactive pursuits or travel. You can be assured that next month, like April, this Report is going to be really, really long.

Catch you all whenever.

Game Completion Update: July

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:51:46 GMT

Doing this up the night before it's technically due, partly because I want to and also partly because I'm a little bored. I doubt that I'll finish anything in the next four days; if I do, they'll just have to go on the August report. Anyway...

July is a month of celebrations, and here we are at the end of it, celebrating four game clears! We're moving into a month that's traditionally been heavy with upheavals for me, so I'm not expecting being able to get through too many in August. But right now, let's go over what was finished in July:

Mario Kart Wii, Wii, July 5th: This one is a little controversial; I cleared the 50cc with all golds on this date, but then finished up 100cc likewise a couple of days later. I'm still a long way from doing so with 150cc, but I'm happy with the fact that the game made me work for the 100cc golds. Rick's tutelage in the Way of the Power Slide didn't hurt, either. The fact is, though, that depending on your skill and emphasis, most matches are pretty evenly set up-- it's all about who knows what courses better. Overall it's still an A-; dropping to a D if you use the Wheel.
Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation, GBA, July 8th: What a long, grueling trip. The game took a leap forward in difficulty around Mission 33, and grinding wasn't just encouraged, it was required. Still, though, it's a wonderfully deep tactical game with endearing characters. I'm surprised too; I thought that these were the second-stringers, but with folks like Sanger Zonvolt, The Sword That Cleaves Evil!!, there's some pretty strong forces of personality here. Now if they could just get their minds off the relationship fetish... Whatever, it's a solid B that has me looking forward to starting the sequel.
Kirby's Adventure, NES/VC, July 20th: I'll admit that I might be a little bit over the target audience for the Kirby series, by which I mean my age has more than one digit in it. I will also admit to loving every very brief second I spent with Kirby's Adventure, even if maybe-- just maybe-- it was a bit too easy to be counted. Still, a clear is a clear, and who am I to argue with that? At least it's not like SoTN or Star Fox 64 last year, where I should not have counted it. (For reference, once I hit 26 clears, Rez HD will no longer count for this year. I'm on track to do it, too.) Anyway, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit, it was a worthwhile use of time, and the game managed to pull a B+ out of me.
Super Mario Galaxy, Wii, July 24th: I'm hereby reserving the right-- though hopefully not the exclusive right-- to smack people in the face when they say that the Wii has no games for core gamers. Granted, Mario is a far cry from Master Chief (or, for that matter, FarCry), but there is something undeniable about Mario Galaxy that compelled me to finish it. What was it again? Oh yeah. Challenging fun. The game was a little too easy in some of its missions and balls-to-the-wall hard in others, but it never lost the sense of whimsy and fun that the series has always been known for. As late as I am to the party, I still think I'd be in the wrong if I gave it anything less than an A. I should hope that I've learned my lesson about not wanting to get the newest Mario game right away, but we're not making any promises here.

Not bad, not bad at all. Still, like I said, this month could be rough-- or it could be just fine; last year saw one of my better months in the dog days of summer. How about we take a look at the lineup for August's time-passing:

1. Final Fantasy Tactics A2, DS. I am lovin' this, even though it's taking me a bit longer than I anticipated. In one of the more surprising twists, I'm not rushing through the story missions. I have no idea what's come over me in that regard. Is this... could this be the fun kind of grinding?
2. Culdcept Saga, 360. Guess what? My 360's no longer broken! Just in time for me to satisfy my latent, burgeoning, rising-to-the-surface yen to get into a card game! I'm going to get back into this if it's the last thing I do, just because it's a crying shame to see such a good game go unplayed for so long.
3. Band of Bugs, 360. Having a working 360 means I get to play this, too. Though in this case the "oh joy" is ever so slightly more sarcastic. I liked the idea, but the problem is that the missions for the campaign are absolutely atrocious. I was expecting a bit more carryover between missions, but that might have been asking a bit too much from what is ultimately FFT Junior. Very Junior.
4. LocoRoco, PSP. What? I've been trying to get back into this for a while now. It's cute, it's short, and it's an interesting concept. Just... just make the singing stop. Please. I'll take Bananaphone on infinite loop before I'll stand another second of this... this... aaaaaaaargh
5. Brave Story: New Traveler, PSP. This is rapidly becoming the new Super Robot Taisen-- a game I start, forget about for months, restart, and then take my sweet time actually finishing. That's not a good thing.

While money is still somewhat tight, I'm in better shape then I was before. While there are still no planned purchases, August is a convention month, so I might be persuaded to pick something up at Otakon. Maybe.

Fancy a look at the Backlog numbers? I thought you might:
Overall List: 21 completed of 53, 39.6% (UP 7.5%, was 32.1%, Goal 40%) with 32 remaining.
Prioritized List: 21 completed of 36, 58.3% (UP 9.7%, was 48.6%, Goal 50%) with 15 remaining (17 exempted).
2008 Goal: 21 completed of 25, 84% (UP 16%, was 68%, Goal 100%) with 4 remaining.
Quick Play Count: 8 uncompleted Quick Play games.

Finally... June saw the start of the endgame for the Reclamation List, and July saw the beginning of the end for the Backlog Project. I've reached the first goal for the Backlog, clearing 50% of the games I declared as "high priority". By my best estimation, if I manage to get one more Clear, I'll meet the 40% overall completion goal for 2008. (I've already put together the 2009 Backlog list; not counting anything from this year that's unfinished on New Year's Day, I have 31 titles there even now.) What's more, getting the last four Clears needed for the Resolution Goal would put me well over the limits for both the Overall and Prioritized lists. Far be it from me to rest on my laurels, though; I'm taking this train to its end, and nothing's going to stop me. Ultimately, I want to try to push myself to 30 Clears by the end of the year-- with the better part of five months left, I think I could do it. Dare me to try?

Catch you folks on Wednesday with the Anime Report.

Tha S#%+ From Tha STREET

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:33:06 GMT

Because Bert and Ernie were not nearly awesome enough.

The Lapse Of Luxury

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:50:19 GMT

Okay, folks, I'll try to make this quick. I have not forgotten about the Love Hina ficlet I owe to prevenger, so expect that at some point next week (the biggest hurdle is getting Shinobu to stay in character... the temptation to have her go crazygonuts is too strong, and wouldn't work with what I have in mind anyway). Also of note, no writing's been done on Harvesting Blueberries since, oh, June. That's bad.

Two weeks from right now I'll be at Otakon, relaxing with friends and enjoying what could possibly be the most peaceful time of the year for me. Yeah, there's always a lot of chaos surrounding it, but in all honesty it's a time when I can really let the world fall away and just do my own thing. I don't get times like that terribly often. It's the getting to that point which is going to be interesting, and with any real luck I'll have accomplished a little bit more in terms of "real work" than I have right now.

I don't have much in the way of plans for this weekend; next weekend is GASP, and the weekend after that I'm out of here. So time is at a bit of a crunch point from now until then. My nights after work will likely be consumed with the usual efforts of getting this place respectable before I leave, assuming I don't decide to slack off and/or write. Or watch anime! I haven't sat down to do that since Rick left. I really ought to do that-- otherwise the Anime Report next week is gonna be really slim.

That's all I got. Until and unless there's a Livejournal client for the iPhone, updates here may be a bit more infrequent. I'm no longer in the habit of carting the Basroil around unless I know or hope I'm going to be doing some writing-- it's still coming with me to Otakon, of course, but it's not something I'm tied as much to anymore.

Ciao for now, folks.

Further Memery!

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:35:48 GMT

I would ordinarily not involve myself in two meme entries in a row, but... well... blame myaru. She suckered me into it, what with her teasing of bad cooking!

Aaaaaaaaanyway. I suppose the continuation aspect is mostly for the writers, but here we go:

The first five comments to this entry may specify a theme or topic for a ficlet, which I will then write. Those who comment must then perpetuate this meme by doing the same in their own journals. For reference, make a list of all fandoms you're willing to write for.

I'm defining "ficlet" as under a thousand words, and at that length I do better with humor than with drama, but I'll see what I can do. I make no promises to adhere strictly to canon-- the Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool both supersede canon restrictions for me. Anyway, here's the list, in no particular order:

Games: Final Fantasy (any except 2, 3 and 5), Wild ARMs (1 or 3), Lunar, Tales of Symphonia, Metal Gear, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Eternal Sonata, Klonoa, Super Robot Taisen OG, Luminous Arc, Touch Detective, The World Ends With You.
Anime: Love Hina, Ai Yori Aoshi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Outlaw Star, Martian Successor Nadesico, Cowboy Bebop, Azumanga Daioh, Risky Safety, Noir, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Bottle Fairy, Seikai, Scrapped Princess, Kanon.

I am your humble writing servant.

Icons, and the memery that loves them

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:56:16 GMT

Via myaru:

Directions:
1. Reply to THIS post, and I will select four or five of your userpics that I like.
2. Make an entry and talk about the icons I have chosen.
3. Other people will then comment on your entry and you will do the same as I have done for you.

(All accreditation is found on my userpic page.)

So I herd u liek Mudkips?
I came across this one while reading through badfic_quotes, and as it happened to combine a priceless screencap of SM with yet more memery, I knew it had to be mine. It gets so much use, too...

I got nothin'.
Recently been on a Bleach kick, and Orihime is one of those characters who are always so endearing to me-- the determined airhead. The icon served as a way to inject some amusement into my excuse posts, until I decided to stop making excuse posts.

Warble While You Work
I keep meaning to turn in some Netflix discs so that I can watch more Mahoromatic, mostly for scenes like this. It's probably not that good that I have this monstrous soft spot for cute, innocent things, is it? Is Chris Hansen going to show up at my door now? I'm scared.

Fear is the mind killer.
Ah, Rez... this icon is actually one of the unlockable gamer pictures from the Xbox Live Arcade version of Rez. During normal gameplay, I don't think I ever managed to get up to this, the penultimate evolution form, prior to Level 5's finale, but it is far cooler in action than on this pic.

The trifecta of disbelief.
I no longer eat BBQ. As it turns out, I never really ate BBQ to begin with; I dislike spicy food. But I grew up in an area known for hot wings... which makes it odd that I didn't like chicken wings, either. I would really only eat the sweet hickory kind if I had no choice but to eat wings. One night when wings were ordered, the baskets got switched. I took a big bite and instantly turned bright red. You can probably guess it by now, but the first words out of my mouth, flowing forth in a spray of chicken, were "OMG WTF BBQ!!!!!".

Yes, that was far too much of a setup for that joke.

I'm skipping the E3 rant because I want to not get ridiculously pissed off. And not for the reasons you think I'd be pissed off. Plus, I'm tired. Catch you all later.

SqueE3!

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:21:45 GMT

Okay, so I know I said I was going to have notes on the iPhone soon... those are still forthcoming, probably tonight. Check the main site. I also wanted to say that with all of the news coming out of E3, I'm going to wait until it's over before I say anything, simply because everything changes so quickly and an assertion on day one will be disproved within hours as the industry manages to outdo itself.

But I'll be damned if the whole "multiplatform FFXIII" thing wasn't a huge bombshell.

Breaking The Silence

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:28:59 GMT

I'm not exactly one to get too sappy on this here LJ. Well, maybe a little. But honestly, most of the time my emotions and thoughts are pretty damn transparent. I make very little effort to hide my intentions (except when I'm playing poker, and even then it's kind of iffy). So the fact that I loved spending the majority of the past week with Rick should be no surprise.

You might have seen that I snagged the full complement of gold cups on 50 and 100cc in Mario Kart Wii, after having had almost no motivation to do so. What you probably didn't notice was the absolute spanking I was handed in Smash Bros. Brawl shortly thereafter... but that's hardly surprising, either. It was a very good week for gaming, with many things being done on both of our ends. Rick picked up a couple of games that he wanted, including Guitar Hero On Tour (the verdict is that the grip is uncomfortable), and I got a couple of recommended games as well (note to self: R-Type Final is goddamn HARD). Oh, and having someone to talk to about the nuttiness that was this week's anime news was also a plus. (Amber: I really am going to look into Saiunkoku, honest... just waiting for the boxed set. Which will now actually happen.)

But the main thing was that it was just a good week overall, and there's nothing like that.

Related: Rick has asked me to pass along a few things for display at Otakon, which will be the next extended vacation I take. One element in particular will be of... interest. I'm hoping that there will be a video camera available just to get the reactions. We shall see.

Anyway. Back to the more or less real world for a couple of days, until Friday morning, when my Appleologist side demands that I line up for the new iPhone. I'm pretty sure there's a "Second Coming" gag in there somewhere but I'll save it for the main page. Ciao.

Anime Watching Report: June

podcast@thefurryone.net (thefurryone) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:28:48 GMT

This one's early. Deal with it.

June wound up being a very, very minimalist month for anime. I suppose taking time out to watch two seasons of a Western animated program will do that, but... well, see, the thing with Avatar is, I can't say it's entirely a "cartoon", but I can't deny that it doesn't fit the strictest definition of "anime", either. (Well, all right, the absolute literal strictest definition, it fits by virtue of being animated. You know what I mean.) So I'm making a judgment call here and saying that it counts for this month. Taking that into account, here's what I watched through in June:

Shakugan no Shana, Episode 1: You know, I felt like I was missing something by not watching this... then I saw the first episode, and realized I was missing a lot more by watching it. It's not bad, unless you've read the books... and at that point it becomes somewhere between barely tolerable and outright awful. I realize Shana, as a tsundere, isn't going to be immediately likable. But at least in the books, she's not a total b**** the entire time. What it boils down to is that it looks to me like she got Mary Sue'd in the transition, and if I never find this series all the way through, all the better. Thankfully, Netflix got this back the very next day.
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Seasons 1 and 2: Unlike Shana, I didn't think anything particular about Avatar until late in May, when I saw the set for a very low price. I figured there was no harm in giving it a shot, and the rest is history. It's surprisingly deep; it really reminds me of the level of intelligent writing we used to see out of Hollywood cartoons. And yes, the fact that I'm waiting for the boxed set for Season 3 is killing me. Dammit, why does everyone need to be so damn awesome in this?!
School Rumble, Episodes 8-10: Still slow going with this, but I'm planning on finishing it at some point in early July. Harima is turning into less of a doofus as he gains more confidence, which shows me that there might be character development in this! I was thinking it was starting to stagnate up until the manga episode... The directors really know how to throw a curveball into things, so I'm a bit more eager to see it through.

Unlike the Game Report, I make no promises to hold myself to this month's anime list. Caprice has its way with me almost constantly, and I'm fairly certain that I'll get distracted by watching something else halfway through the first disc. The planned watch list, such as it is, for July looks like this:

1. School Rumble, complete. I'm gearing back into this, really I am!
2. Moon Phase, complete. This too. I miss cute lil' evil Hazuki.
3. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, complete. My lack of motivation in watching this drives me to despair!
4. Hayate The Combat Butler, Episodes 1-24. Just waiting for the right time to get to this.
5. Gundam SeeD, complete. Getting near the end of Super Robot Taisen has indeed rekindled my mecha spirit.

Money's tight, so only one disc is planned for July:

Kanon Vol. 6, whenever it arrives. I'm going to have a few dirty words with whoever decided to delay this without telling the retailers.

Finally... Next week, the iPhone 3G sees release, and I'll be picking it up. I've not exactly used the video capabilities of the iPod when they've been available to me-- mostly I used it to be able to watch through Kino's Journey back in the day, and I think that was about it-- but I'm thinking that I might take advantage of it this time to force a re-watch of Babylon 5 at some point, or perhaps (more likely) watching a fansubbed series on the go. It all depends, folks, but we shall see-- I can certainly see myself enjoying the occasional episode over lunch.

I'll try to have a post up on the main page at some point during the week. It will likely have something to do with the minor matter of my Xbox 360 self-destructing one god damned day before my vacation starts.