New Katamari?

A new Katamari Damacy game for the PS3?!?! I can't contain my excitement if this is even remotely true. The franchise is so much wacky fun, I would even buy a crappy port at this point. Naaaa na na na na na na...!
Thanks Joystiq! http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/25/katamari-damacy-tribute-coming-to-ps3/

Dairy Queen Value Menu

So as I was watching TV, I saw an ad for the new Dairy Queen Value Menu. I wanted to post my gut reaction. When I was treasurer of PSAO, I sold Japanese Snacks with the same basic pricing scheme: # of items + $1. (I wonder if DQ's stops at 4 for $5). Nobody understood the pricing even though I explained it for 3+ years. I just see DQ having many of the same problems, only difference being that many people won't care because of tax and buying other things. I just picture many people still being confused and it leading to much explaining and confusion, since I had similar first hand experience. Just saying...good luck DQ.

So a little while ago, I downloaded and completed Flower for the PSN. This is an awesome game, simply put. In the game you start out as a single flower petal and use the wind to fly around and awaken other flowers. The whole story is like a flower's dream. You control the game almost entirely using the six axis control of the PS3, which to me, is the first time it actually had a specific and good use. The game is just an amazing feeling. It can be relaxing and peaceful as you fly around and collect flowers. It's just such a change in pace form the normal types of games and it is a welcome change since it is done so well. The game doesn't really have much of a challenge since you can't die. You can get lost or not find the correct flower you need to bloom, but you can't die. The trophy support, although buggy, is a great addition to this game as after it's done gives you some more challenges to complete since the game has very few. The graphics are amazing and very artsy. Each blade of grass reacts to the wind and you just feel right out there with your flower riding the wind. The sound, although minimalistic, adds to the mood and is a great addition. Every time you bloom a flower, you get a chime of music, so you can add to the ambiance. The game is a little short, but the experience was worth it. My only real complaint about the game, and it would be hard to change, is that it is very easy to get motion sickness. Since you control with the controller, you are also moving about as the screen is so it can become sickening if you get too much into it, luckily the game is relaxing. A great game that I'm glad I got to experience thanks to the PSN. I'm happy they take chances like this and support little independent games.

Also of note, there was an article on CNN today describing the game company that made the game. Ironic.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/23/santiago.games.tedx/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Slow Week

So it's been a rather slow and uneventful week. I've been pretty busy at work, which is great change of pace. I didn't really do much outside of work this past week. I saw two movies, Pride and Glory, and Pineapple Express. Pride and Glory was pretty good, but deep down it was just another crooked cop movie. Edward Norton did a great job, but he wasn't as standout as some of his other roles. I thought Pineapple Express was pretty bad. I only found it funny in a few parts and the action sequences were mediocre. The stoner comedy I suppose was ok, but I was mostly bored with it. Much of the movie was over the top and it didn't add to the comedy, more like why won't that guy just die. Other than that, I started to play Valkyria Chronicles this week. I have high expectations and so far it is living up to them, but the game is nerve racking and pretty hard at some points.

The only other thing this past week was that I splurged and bought a couple of things. First I saw that Right Stuf had the Full Metal Panic Season 1&2 on sale. Since I've been in an anime binge lately from seeing some good stuff on Adult Swim and getting back into things from the cons I went to, I decided to buy it. I saw at least the first few episodes of both seasons in PSAO and enjoyed what I saw. Since I needed just a little more for free shipping, I decided to purchase Season 3 while I was at it. It was on sale and it made sense. Then later this week, Right Stuf announced a really good Bandai sale. Sigh, so I splurged and decided to buy some Bandai stuff as well. I bought the entire series of Cowboy Bebop and the first season of Code Geass. They shouldn't arrive for a while though. Hopefully this will settle my impulse buying for a little while. My credit card bill will thank me.

Grow Grow Boy

So a little bit ago I picked up Noby Noby Boy from the PSN. I figured it was cheap enough and from the same guy that made Katamari Damacy, so I knew it would probably be some good quirky fun. Well, that is exactly what it is. It's the combination of like Katamari Damacy and the cell phone game Snake, while trying to stretch yourself. The concept of working together towards a common goal is really cool, but I feel that growth will drastically slow down as the game gets older. The game is definitely quirky, just like Katamari. The game is also fun in such a way that I passed several hours without even noticing. But I have several complaints. The first is that this really isn't a game. Without the trophies, there would be no challenges and no objectives. Instead this is more like a toy you got when you were a kid (the perfect analogy is Stretch Armstrong). This makes it very hard to continue to repeatedly to pick up. Also, although, the levels are randomly populated with such great objects and have endless possibilities, I feel they are too small. It would be nice to really let loose and eat everything. Noby Noby Boy is a great toy, it's just a shame it isn't more of a game with some traditional objectives or levels.

Random complaint: I'd like to know why the SciFi channel is digitally blocked, like HBO, when other channels around it are not. This prevents me from watching it on my analog tv and not using my TV Tuner. This is annoying since I want to watch Ani-Monday and might not always be able to and would like to record it.

Watching a Little Taste of Milk

So a pretty busy weekend and a bunch of stuff I want to share. The first would be my experience with Apple Care. So my power adapter finally died after being on the fritz for a while. After already replacing one from Best Buy, I remembered I had Apple Care so I called them up and they said they would replace it, I just had to take it "to any place that sells apples". So even after checking if Best Buy was ok, I tried at Best Buy to find out it had to be an Apple Store. Friday after work (since I had a tour down in Fishkill) I went over to the Store in Danbury. The process was incredibly easy and simple and I have to say that my experience with Apple Care is good, but running over to Danbury is a pain and the whole idea of my power adapter failing is stupid.

Friday night, Joe was having a wine tasting party at his apartment. I enthusiastically went since I've been trying to get more into wine and this was a great opportunity to try a bunch of stuff, especially wines from around the world. I had an absolute blast at the party. I tried a bunch of new stuff, something like 11 new wines. The theme was new world vs old world. For the most part, I feel I liked the new world stuff better. I enjoyed the Chardonnay he had, preferring the buttery California one. I tried three sauvignon blanc wines. All three were spectacular and I feel this could be my new favorite variety. The red wines I was disappointed with, but still found some I liked, like a Cali Petit Sarah and a Pinot from France. I had a great time and just had a wonderful evening.

On Saturday, besides for getting a few things done, I went and saw a matinee of Watchmen. Now, never reading the book and coming in blind, I thought this was an excellent comic book movie but have nothing to compare it to in terms of source material (but here it stayed pretty accurate). It is clearly a comic book superhero movie and it is unapologetic in that. This doesn't try like some of the other movies to be more mainstream, which may explain the huge drop in sales this weekend. The beginning part of the movie felt difficult for me to adjust into this alternate world where vigilantes are everywhere. This seriously detracted me for quite a while, luckily being a long movie allowed me to get past this and still have a lot to watch. The character drama was pretty good and I felt it was a good ride of a superhero movie. The real kicker at the end, really hit home and I was stunned and awed. To imagine that type of twist and resolution in a huge overarching comic book series that was being released during the cold war is incredible. There were many parts of the movie that I thought could have been explained better or just have anything mentioned about them (the villain's tiger thing). The amount of gratuitous nudity in the movie was a little over the top, luckily it didn't detract too much. I'm guessing this was all straight out of the books being originally directed towards men audiences. The clip at the top I now find pretty funny even if I don't get all of the jokes in there. A great movie that is unapologetic in what it is.

Tonight I watched Sean Penn's Milk. This was another amazing movie. Sean Penn did an amazing job and I think deserved the Oscar. All of the acting was great and the writing was spectacular. Even though this is a rather slow moving movie, I was hooked and was thoroughly entertained watching and wondering what was going to happen next. By the end of the movie, I was somewhat actually moved to tears. It was a touching ending and it is just sad as to how these people are treated even now, thirty years later. How all Americans don't have the same rights and the same freedoms. It was a wonderful movie that was done with great taste and with an extraordinary message.

Oh yeah, and lots of blue penis.

Death Race

So a few quick words on Death Race, my netflix movie. Somehow this movie made it to my queue (I suppose of the sorts positive reviews I've heard and Jason Statham certainly helped) and also somehow made it towards the top. I pegged this movie as clearly a B movie with total ridiculousness and I approached it cautiously and didn't have very high hopes going in. I have to say that I was kinda surprised and did kinda enjoy it. It still was overall a mediocre movie, but certainly better than I had planned. The action sequences and races were cool but certainly over the top. Most times, I could predict about what would happen, and they certainly killed off a major antagonist way too soon. The ending mini twist worked, but feel it didn't surprise me too much. I mean, I guess it is kinda hard to root for criminals to break out of jail. The blu-ray had some crisp visuals to see all the gritty racing and had a great audio soundtrack. (Although I know that recently especially Dolby and DTS are supposed to be somewhat equal, but it always seems I am more impressed by movies that feature DTS audio.) Overall, I was surprised by the results and did enjoy the film, but probably won't remember it.

In other news, I love turning my keyboard into a Daft Punk mash up board: http://www.najle.com/idaft/

Trusty Sonata

So over the weekend, I finished and beat Eternal Sonata for the PS3. This was a very enjoyable game and I'm glad that I picked it up. It provided such a great, traditional RPG experience that I haven't had in some time due to the number of other games that I've been playing.
The story of this game starts out incredibly slow. It is so mundane at first ("We're going to go complain about taxes") but gradually picks up throughout the game. I think that was something that this game did surprisingly well. Although it didn't really grab me in the beginning, it kept building on to itself making the story more complex and easy to continue with. The pacing was pretty good for most parts of the game since it kept building and getting more intense. The ending wasn't really a let down, but I wish it could have been tighter and less confusing. Much of it made no sense and it is a shame to an overall good game. The story also made little references to Frederic Chopin's real life either through in game events or through documentary style cut scenes usually every chapter. The documentary scenes were told through text while a solo performance of Chopin's music was played, usually telling bits of his life and possible inspirations for the piece. I found these pieces interesting and something fresh in the game since much of it was repeated stereotypes. I found the solos didn't harm the pacing too much and were too interesting for me to not like them. In addition, it provided some great insight to the main character.
The battles in the game were done in a very interesting action RPG way. Each player had their turn in a 3d battle field and could then execute actions like an action RPG for a certain amount of time. The game starts you off with a very easy battle system and it gets increasingly harder as the game progresses (to the point where buttons are randomized). This keeps the battles fresh since it keeps changing certain aspects of the game. Most times I didn't find them too tedious or monotonous since I feel it was one of the high points of the game. the battles also move along at a very quick pace which is great. The battles also added the option to guard or counter attack certain enemy attacks. This also kept you actively involved in the battle during the whole time. It did feel a little unbalanced though in that you almost always had to guard against attacks since if you didn't you would take huge amounts of damage. The addition of light and dark areas of the battlefield also added an interesting dynamic. Overall, I thought the game had a pretty good difficulty. It wasn't too hard by any means, but it wasn't easy in that you had to time your guards so that you didn't take too much damage. I only died a few times, and mostly during boss fights. These is a new game+ mode where things get twice as harder and a few additional treasures and such, but I didn't partake in this since I feel it would take too long for the small additional benefit. If I ever want to come back to this, I certainly can.
The graphics of the game were beautiful cell shaded models and environments. It looked great in HD. Some of the characters felt like they had hollow heads, but I get this feeling with a lot of recent games. The music and sounds of the game were really good. Besides for the solo performances, I can't say there were really any memorable scores, but there weren't really any grating songs either. This is good since the game is essentially music based and themed. Every character and most places are music names since this is Chopin's dream. I enjoyed this original take on things and am glad the music didn't detract from this, although it would have been good to have a few top notch songs. The voice acting in English was hit or miss. Some of the characters sounded great, while others felt pretty forced. It would have been nice for this to be a little more consistent.
The additions and fixes made to the PS3 version were pretty good. I enjoyed the extra costumes, changes in difficulty, extra scenes and dungeons. Although I didn't experience the changes in the new game+ mode, I feel that this version has to be much better than the 360 version.
Overall, a really good standard next gen RPG. I liked it a bunch and it was a welcome addition to my collection. It also introduced me to the possibility of other Bandai Namco RPGs like Tales (although vastly different).

Mountainous Weekend

This is a little late it feels, but I wanted to make sure I wrote some stuff on this weekend. I had a great weekend with the great weather helped me do a bunch of stuff. I was able to get a few things done around the apartment, and then since it was so nice, I decided to take a hike in the beautiful weather. I traveled down to Beacon to hike up Mt Beacon. It was only a mile or so to the top, but they weren't kidding when they said it is one of the most strenuous 1 mile hikes. Combine that with me being out of shape and I was really huffing and puffing. The trail was pretty muddy from the melting snow and at some points, dangerously icy. I actually slipped and fell twice. The views were pretty good. I liked looking down on the Hudson and Beacon. I have to say that the actual trail wasn't the best maintained though. at several points it would split and I imagine would seemingly come together. This happened unfortunately to me coming back down. The path would split, and both would be marked red, so I would take the easier path. But coming down, I never met up again with the main trail. I actually was lost for a little bit. Nothing too scary or anything. There were still for the most parts rough paths, and I knew the general direction to head, downhill. So that is exactly what I did. I kept going until the path spit me out onto a nearby road at the base of the mountain. Using the mountain and the old cog railway as my guide, I walked along the road back to my car. I imagine the trails may get cleaned up a little more towards spring, but I was having some trouble with them. I still enjoyed getting some good exercise. The rest of the day and weekend were pretty lazy as I was able to relax and enjoy some digital entertainment. I did beat some games, and I'll most likely give my impressions in the coming days.

I did watch the movie Appaloosa. I thought this was a pretty good Western. I have to say nothing stood out incredibly good or bad, but it was some fun cowboy action. I have to say that I did not like Viggo Mortensen's facial hair. It looked way unnatural. Everyone else's looked rough and aged. His looked like he just visited the barber in every shot. I don't know, that was mainly the only thing that bothered me.

Later on Sunday, I saw Howl's Moving Castle at MCAS. Somehow I did not see it yet, so I'm glad I was able to see something new there. It was an extremely pretty anime. We watched the English dub, mainly I think for Cristian Bale as Howl and Billy Crystal as the flame. All of the voicing was done really well, which I shouldn't be too surprised since Disney always does a good job. I have to like how Cristian's voice for Howl and his transformation were exactly the same as Bruce Wayne and Batman. It was laugh out loud hilarious for me since Batman's voice was always a little comical. It was a great movie. It felt a tad too long overall, but I could have just been tired. My only gripe is how the main character's appearance and voice would change for sometimes no given reason at all. With it, sometimes it looked like the animation quality would vary as well. Overall, another great Miyazaki film.

I have to say, I hate Daylight Savings Time. Getting up is now so tiring.

Raging Excel

So tonight I pretty much was just finishing up some stuff. I started out by watching the last DVD to Excel Saga and finishing up the series. This took me a crazy amount of time to finish, and I'm glad that to say that I'm finally done. I originally got this series sometime over the 07 summer. I started out watching it often and enjoyed it pretty much, but I suppose I quit once school started or just got tired of the repeated craziness. I then picked it up again recently to finish it up. I liked the series overall. It was genuinely funny in many places and way over the top. But it can get a little annoying after a while since it has no plot what-so-ever. When they tried to add some towards the end, it felt forced and would have almost enjoyed it better with none. One feature I loved about this purchase is the ADV vid notes that are on the normal dvd releases. I love reading those crazy little factoids. Although it did get crazy sometimes with the amount of text on the screen.

I also watched my netflix movie tonight, which was Raging Bull probably making its way to my queue because of Martin Scorsese. I did not have a good time watching this movie. I thought it was boring and very slow paced. It felt like it dragged on forever. I don't understand the rerelease on Bluray as the sound and video were both nothing memorable. I don't quite understand the movie being shot in black and white, although I'm told Scorsese explains this in the special features. The black and white just seemed superfluous and it didn't make much sense since there were shots of color mixed into the film. I found these jarring, especially since at one point they were used to show the passage of time. The one shining point of this movie is the acting. Every actor did a fantastic job and made their character believable. The story of a broken down boxer, his family struggles, friends, and battered wife are all convincing and well received, I just wish I enjoyed it a bit more.

My Emo Live Journal Entry

So before I turn this into the emo, live journal portion of my post, I might as well get by the fun stuff first. This weekend was State Patty's Day in State College. I still don't fully understand why you need an unofficial day full of drinking when St. Patrick's Day is when school is in session. But who am I to try and make excuses for college students to drink. I happened to be in State College and hung out with Jared and his friends for the remainder of Saturday. Although not fully accustomed to drinking for 9 hours, I did, and had fun for the most part. We started at a friend's apartment where it was good fun. We then moved downtown later in the night where we went to the Rathskeller for a quick drink. By then, it was starting to catch up with me, so the Skeller wasn't ideal. We then left and ended up at The Cellblock. Although I'm not into dance clubs and was kind of tired of drinking, it was ok. I did see Sam Glick, which is always a plus to see fellow graduated friends. A good, long State Patty's Day, but kinda disappointed I that I didn't see Greenman anywhere.

Now onto my emo portion of this entry which probably none wants to read and I'm just putting down to get out. I also apologize for speaking on the cusp, more so than normal. So on Saturday I headed down to State College in the morning and dropped by Michelle's place. After much thought for quite some time now, I decided to break up with her and that was the main reason for my travels. We had a nice discussion where I explained my feelings and some of my reasoning I could formulate into words. She seemed very understanding and I was quite surprised at how well she took it. Of course she wasn't happy, but all considering, I thought it went quite well. I explained how it was clear she liked me way more than I liked her back, and that she deserved someone who would like her equally. I explained how it might have worked better as a friendship and told her that I'd be willing to keep her as a friend if she wanted, but understood if she didn't. After talking and consoling for a while, I left to give her space, time, and perspective. When I left she was doing well and was genuinely interested in still being friends or so it seemed. It will be interesting to see how things go from here on to see if now that she had some time, how she will behave differently toward me.
So I think ultimately, the relationship came down to personalities. Many other things complicated the relationship, like being long distance and having vastly different views in terms of politics, religion, and ideals to name a few. When we first started going out, she paid attention to me and was infatuated with me, which was exactly what I needed in a relationship. Also we had similar interests and I was the dominant person in the relationship, determining what to do, making decisions, and not playing my normal submissive role. This was exactly what I needed after my previous relationship and also at that time in my graduation since I had just gotten through some of the worst semesters. Eventually, I found out that her personality was eerily similar to mine and the way I acted when first in a relationship. I found this interesting and understandable since I went through that. Though even later, I think this all started to fail and not feel fresh any more, and I would like to think I know why. Her personality was almost identical to mine, but my weaknesses were even more apparent in her and much "stronger". I to one degree or another am asocial, don't approach people, quiet, don't like confrontation, don't speak up, difficulty in resolving problems, making decisions, dependent, etc. to name a few of my character "defects" for lack of a better word. I feel in a relationship, one aspect people seek out is character traits that complement your own, not to accentuate your weaknesses, which is why some crazy opposites attract towards each other. I feel that the more and more I found out about her personality, the more it only helped accentuate my own weaknesses and dislike those traits. I'm pretty sure I'm just speaking gibberish now, but either way, I am now single and hope that Michelle and I can maybe continue to be friends, since we do have similar interests. I guess that's about it for this emo entry. I guess the obligatory thing to do after writing one of these is to cut myself....
Maybe I'll just pretend.